I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
This is my renaissance
This is my one response
This is the way I say I love you
This is my second chance
This is my one romance
This is the cutting line
On which I stand to show you
It happened fast in a flash, just this evening
As I hit the gas, horn blast, brakes were screaming
As the car crashed, broken glass, broke my dreaming
I hit the dash, so fast my ears are ringing
My sister’s on the right side just slightly leaning
I grabbed her hand hard until she started breathing
My brother’s in the back, jaw cracked from the beating
The breath in my chest has slipped and I’m sinking
Blinking through diamond spider webs of cracked glass
I’m trying to remember all the words you said in the past
Through the ash, siren screams and red beams
I hear you sing softly to me
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
This is my broken heart
This is my bleeding start
This is the way I’ve come to know you
This is my winding road
This is my way back home
This is the narrow door you know that I will walk through
I got a letter today of why she went away
She said, “It’s better this way, you knew I never could stay.”
Half empty closets and frames, all that’s left to my name
As she left in the rain and left my heart on a chain
Three years I’ve built this two-face tower for hours on a lease
You gave me one yellow flower that said rest in peace
In pieces I’ve broken open to think too much or just enough
Alone to trust midst the rubble and the dust
Humbled, it took this much to break down and understand
Spent my life this far on castles made of sand
Tossed in the breakers in the palm of your hand
Now I can finally stand
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the one
I heard it in the song
And I can be the one
I heard it in the song
This is my renaissance
This is my one response
This is the way I say I love you
This is my one response
This is the way I say I love you
This is my second chance
This is my one romance
This is the cutting line
On which I stand to show you
It happened fast in a flash, just this evening
As I hit the gas, horn blast, brakes were screaming
As the car crashed, broken glass, broke my dreaming
I hit the dash, so fast my ears are ringing
My sister’s on the right side just slightly leaning
I grabbed her hand hard until she started breathing
My brother’s in the back, jaw cracked from the beating
The breath in my chest has slipped and I’m sinking
Blinking through diamond spider webs of cracked glass
I’m trying to remember all the words you said in the past
Through the ash, siren screams and red beams
I hear you sing softly to me
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
This is my broken heart
This is my bleeding start
This is the way I’ve come to know you
This is my winding road
This is my way back home
This is the narrow door you know that I will walk through
I got a letter today of why she went away
She said, “It’s better this way, you knew I never could stay.”
Half empty closets and frames, all that’s left to my name
As she left in the rain and left my heart on a chain
Three years I’ve built this two-face tower for hours on a lease
You gave me one yellow flower that said rest in peace
In pieces I’ve broken open to think too much or just enough
Alone to trust midst the rubble and the dust
Humbled, it took this much to break down and understand
Spent my life this far on castles made of sand
Tossed in the breakers in the palm of your hand
Now I can finally stand
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the wall when you fall down
Find me on the rocks when you break down
I heard it in the song when you call out
But I got to say now it’s got to change
I can be the one
I heard it in the song
And I can be the one
I heard it in the song
This is my renaissance
This is my one response
This is the way I say I love you
Lyrics submitted by MCWillinger
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ing the song “Renaissance,” Kearney says, “The song is about a friend who was in a car wreck and another who got dumped by his girlfriend. The lyrics touch on these moments in people’s lives when they hit rock bottom and question what’s going on. In that place of total uncertainty, they start to look for something that's real.”
That really makes sense, i feel if i try to elaborate on that i'll just repeat what's already been said. lol
I think this song is more about realizing you need to change. It also seems that it's talking about finding god. This is still a song you can relate to either way. The word "Renaissance" in it's self literally means to be born again.
as much as i dont believe in god, maybe its about the guy getting into a car accident and god saying 'im there for you and i can be your savior, but some things have to change' and him changing is his response to god saving him in the car accident?...and then with the break up letter verse im not quite sure but maybe its about how he is so upset about his relationship failing but god gives him the strength to 'stand'...im not sure, its a great song but a lil confusing haha
I'm not sure you can divorce this song from Kearney's overall Christian theme. It's allegorical, but "castles made of sand," the refrain, the call to repentance are all good examples of Christian imagery. See Matthew 7:26 for example. I think to make this a love song kind of misses Kearney's deeper meaning. I think Janie has it exactly right. From a Christian perspective, it's two beautiful examples of how we only come to God broken to say "I can't do this on my own, I need You to help me."
It confuses me that the song is about love when in the beginning it's about a car crash with his siblings and then he talks about an ex-girlfriend. I would say that it's about love in all different aspects (family, girlfriends, ect) but the ex-girlfriend doesn't love him anymore, whereas his love for his family is unconditional. I'm going to stick to it being about loving though.
I think this song is more about realizing you need to change. It also seems that it's talking about finding god. This is still a song you can relate to either way. The word "Renaissance" in it's self literally means to be born again.
In the beginning he says that this is his second chance, how he means to show her that he's been reborn as something better, i.e. a renaissance. I think the car crash was when he realized how much he loved her. Things like that have a way of making you appreciate the things in your life as we all know. He hears her voice telling him that she's there for him when he's down, when he's broken, but something has to change, right now. He then returns to his sentiment of a second chance. The second verse is him realizing, too late, how he had been building these "two-faced towers for hours on a lease" and that it had taken her leaving for him to realize his mistakes. He's standing on his own now. Perhaps what she means by "heard it in the song when you call out" is that she can hear potential in his music, but she feels like he needs to do something about it, sit or get off the pot I guess. This album, then, would sort of be his renaissance, him following his dream and just going for it. Just a thought. In the end I think it's a bid for her love again, showing her that he still thinks of her, still loves her, and that he's learned from his mistakes.
I'm going to agree with LiveUrLife, that does make sense.
Since the second stanza seems to imply that he's the one driving the car, I think that the whole car crash is metaphorical. I think he means that his family was depending on him, he let them down, but then "I grabbed her hand hard until she started breathing" might imply that he's trying to save them. I agree with arcteryx74 that renaissance in this case means to be born again, so perhaps he realized, during the "car crash" that he needed to change.
I think Mat's christian faith is definitely showing through and his belief that God uses hard times to get our attention that He is there and sometime we don't see Him until we are in a place of desperation. I think the first "This is my renaissance...this is the way I say I love you" is God talking talking to him giving him a "second chance". "This is my broken heart....this is the way I've come to know you is his response to God" saying "this is my way back home". Many references to God being there and biblical parallels. "Tossed in the breakers,in the the palm of your hand"-"find me on the rocks"-"heard it in the song when you called out"-"on shifting sands". Don't think this a song about some girl.