I had one friend in high school,
Recently he hung himself with string.
His note said, 'If living is the problem,
Well, that's just baffling.'
And at the wake I waited around
To see my ex first love,
And I barely recognized her,
But I knew exactly what she was thinking of.

We sat quietly in the corner,
Whispering close about loss.
And I remembered why I loved her,
And I asked her why I drove her off.

She said, "The slow fade of love,
Its soft edge might cut you
And our poor friend Jim, well, he just lived within
The slow fade of love."

A woman calls my house once a week,
She's always selling things.
Some charity, a phone plan,
Or subscription to a magazine.
And as I turned her down (I always do),
There was something trembling in her voice.
I said, 'Hey, what troubles you?'

She said, "I'm surprised you noticed.
Well, my husband, he's leaving,
And I can't convince him to stay.
And he'll take our daughter with him,
She wants to go with him anyway.
I'm sorry I'm hard to live with,
Living is the problem for me.
I'm selling people things they don't want,
When I don't know what she needs.
He said, 'The slow fade of love,
And its mist might choke you.
It's my gradual descent into a life I never meant.
It's the slow fade of love."

I was driving south from Melrose.
I happened upon my old lover's old house.
I found myself staring at the closed up door
Like the day she threw me out.
"Diana, Diana. Diana, I would die for you.
I'm in love with you completely,
I'm afraid that's all I can do."

She said, "You can sleep upon my doorstep,
You can promise me indifference, Jim.
But my mind is made up,
And I'll never let you in again.
For the slow fade of love.
It might hit you from below.
It's your gradual descent into a life you never meant.
It's the slow fade of love."

It's the slow fade of love.
It's the slow fade of love.
It's the slow fade of love.
Baby, It's the slow fade of love.
It's the slow fade of love.
It's the slow fade of love.
It's the slow fade of love.
Slow fade of love.
It's the slow fade of love.


Lyrics submitted by sonics222, edited by Oz82

A Man/Me/Then Jim Lyrics as written by Jenny Diane Lewis Blake Sennett

Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

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A Man/Me/Then Jim song meanings
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  • +1
    General Comment

    Personally, I think the song tells the story of Jim's faded love and death in backwords order from the perspective of three different narrators (A Man/Me/Then Jim). Each verse reveals a new part of the story...

    The first verse is an example of faded love between a man and his old girlfriend who reunite at Jim's funeral. The Man tells us exactly what the suicide note said and his "ex-first love" explains that Jim "just lived within the slow-fade of love," or that he had some sort of a failed relationship in his life that probably led him to his end.

    Next comes the second verse as told by "Me." I interpret that "Me" is the Man's ex-first love from the funeral and that this verse explains how she knew that Jim "just lived within the slow fade of love." She spoke on the phone with Jim's wife who makes a "living is the problem" comment, parralleling Jim's suicide note. This line obviously connects the woman on the phone to Jim. I guess, according to the verse, their marriage was unhappy, so Jim left and took their daughter.

    The 3rd verse, as told by Jim, also sort of mirrors the first verse in the sense that both men in the song attempt to rekindle their relationships with their old loves. The way I take it, Jim goes desperately back to Diana, but she totally rebuffs his advances and is completely indifferent. As someone mentioned earlier, she has moved on from that "old house." Then all Jim can do is die, which he does, making a sarcastic comment in his suicide note to his wife, Diana, and thus we return to the beginning of the song, Jim's funeral.

    Hope that makes a little sense...

    -Kiley

    jkileybobon June 19, 2007   Link

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