In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Magnificent in disguise
You’ve got watchers eyes
You’ll get a chance to show what
You’re made of
The question asked terrifies
And I can’t disguise
That your answer is what I’m afraid of
Help me to understand
If you have a plan
It would do us some good if you shared it
Help me to make it clear
What we’re doing here
It was a different dream
But you decided you had to compare it
Show me what you want to do
Ask me and I’ll follow you
Tell me something true
Speak it and I will believe it
Corruption of purity
It occurs to me
That you didn’t have much in the first place
“Telephone Diary, Chapters one to three”
When I read it
You should have seen your face
Well I know it’s wrong to create a song
In the ashes of what we believe in
But I have a war to fight
And wrong or right
I’ll escape from what I was deceived in
I guess now we’re enemies
You’ll make love to me with your fingers crossed
When we do it
Depending on chemistry
To make us free, yeah
We built us a bomb
Then we threw it
And here in the wreckage dear
With the sky so clear,
But the smoke hides the sun up above us
We’ll always have just one thing
That we love fighting
And we’re hoping that someone will love us
You’ve got watchers eyes
You’ll get a chance to show what
You’re made of
The question asked terrifies
And I can’t disguise
That your answer is what I’m afraid of
Help me to understand
If you have a plan
It would do us some good if you shared it
Help me to make it clear
What we’re doing here
It was a different dream
But you decided you had to compare it
Show me what you want to do
Ask me and I’ll follow you
Tell me something true
Speak it and I will believe it
Corruption of purity
It occurs to me
That you didn’t have much in the first place
“Telephone Diary, Chapters one to three”
When I read it
You should have seen your face
Well I know it’s wrong to create a song
In the ashes of what we believe in
But I have a war to fight
And wrong or right
I’ll escape from what I was deceived in
I guess now we’re enemies
You’ll make love to me with your fingers crossed
When we do it
Depending on chemistry
To make us free, yeah
We built us a bomb
Then we threw it
And here in the wreckage dear
With the sky so clear,
But the smoke hides the sun up above us
We’ll always have just one thing
That we love fighting
And we’re hoping that someone will love us
Lyrics submitted by constant
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Great version of a great song,
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The song sounds like a relationship spiraling downward... At first, he seems content, and just needs some guidance: "Ask me and I'll follow you", but by the end there's a full blown metaphorical war. The line that catches me the most is the glimmer of hope at the end, "We'll always have just one thing/That we love fighting/And we're hoping that someone will love us".