The song 'Fortnight' by Taylor Swift and Post Malone tells a story about strong feelings, complicated relationships, and secret wishes. It talks about love, betrayal, and wanting someone who doesn't feel the same. The word 'fortnight' shows short-lived happiness and guilty pleasures, leading to sadness. It shows how messy relationships can be and the results of hiding emotions. “I was supposed to be sent away / But they forgot to come and get me,” she kickstarts the song in the first verse with lines suggesting an admission to a hospital for people with mental illnesses. She goes in the verse admitting her lover is the reason why she is like this. In the chorus, she sings about their time in love and reflects on how he has now settled with someone else. “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary / And I love you, it’s ruining my life,” on the second verse she details her struggles to forget about him and the negative effects of her failure. “Thought of callin’ ya, but you won’t pick up / ‘Nother fortnight lost in America,” Post Malone sings in the outro.
Frozen into coats
White girls of the north
Filed past one, five and one
They are the fabled lambs
A Sunday ham
The ancient snow
And they could float above the grass
In circles if they tried
A latent power I'm known to hide
To keep some hope alive
That a girl like I could ever try
Could ever try
So we just skirt the hallway signs
A phantom and a fly
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection
And weakened falling eyes
In cheap shots from the tribe
And we're off to Nemarca' porch again
Another afternoon
Of the goat-head tunes and pilfered booze
We wander through her Momma's house
The milk from the window lights
Family portrait, circa '95
This is that foreign land
With the sprayed-on tans
And it all feels fine
Be it silk or slime
So, when they tap our Monday heads
Two zombies walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth our time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
So, when they tap our Sunday heads
Two zombie walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth the time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
White girls of the north
Filed past one, five and one
They are the fabled lambs
A Sunday ham
The ancient snow
And they could float above the grass
In circles if they tried
A latent power I'm known to hide
To keep some hope alive
That a girl like I could ever try
Could ever try
So we just skirt the hallway signs
A phantom and a fly
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection
And weakened falling eyes
In cheap shots from the tribe
And we're off to Nemarca' porch again
Another afternoon
Of the goat-head tunes and pilfered booze
We wander through her Momma's house
The milk from the window lights
Family portrait, circa '95
This is that foreign land
With the sprayed-on tans
And it all feels fine
Be it silk or slime
So, when they tap our Monday heads
Two zombies walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth our time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
So, when they tap our Sunday heads
Two zombie walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth the time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
Lyrics submitted by heyheyhey111, edited by Gryphoning, augustgw, DumbBunnies
Phantom Limb Lyrics as written by James Mercer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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More Featured Meanings
Fortnight
Taylor Swift
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Cajun Girl
Little Feat
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
wutdahellz,
Because you asked for feedback with regard to your "women in combat" thesis -- well, here it goes.
wutdahellz said:
i think this song has to do with women in the military and the trials and tribulations they face from people who believe they dont belong. i think it also has to do with our troops being over in the middle east and Mercer's discontent with the whole situation.
elvisatemydonuts response:
I think that music is subjective, and lyrics can mean different things to different people when filtered through their own experiences or unique world view. You seem to be very focused on women’s issues and the war on terror.
I disagree with your military/war conclusions because if that was Mercer’s intent, he’d have written,“...girls of the West”, not the North. (If we were at war in Venezuela, “...girls of the North” would fit, but we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan where we are known as "The West").
The main, (and most obvious), reason I’m sure you came up with incorrect assumptions about the song’s meaning, is because you started off basing your conclusions from incorrect lyrics.
Examples:
wutdahellz said:
frozen in two coats-->metaphor for having two selves..being a woman and being an officer...and how its impossible to segregate the two.
But with the correct lyric:
frozen winter coats--> Well, there goes that metaphor of “two selves” (which in my opinion was a huuuge stretch anyway).
wutdahellz said:
fire past one fire the one-->guns.
correct lyric:
file past one five and one-->NOT guns.
I will say this wutdahellz; You have a very fertile imagination!
It’s much more likely that he is recalling his school days in England, (he spent part of his youth growing up in England), where “The North” is a common phrase referring to the working-class cities and/or the lower-middle class.
But even though that is slightly more likely, it's still impossible to say what the true meaning of this song is without asking James himself, because each line is more ambiguous than the next and seems to have little to do with the previous lines.
Perhaps this song was all a stream-of-consciousness effort where he drops the following huge hint that there is no actual cohesive meaning to this song, but only random thoughts:
"Follow the lines and wonder why there's no connection."
Of course, I may be wrong.
reminds me of a really great U2 song. this album is pretty good.
This song is very nonstalgic... It's almost as if he is critisizing the educational system for encouraging a standardized approach to learning as opposed to a more individual method. He kind of describes as going through motions during school, alwasy considered insobordinate to the system (phantom and a fly). After "A week of rolling eyes"(week day) they are off to a friends house listening to music and drinking. During his youth his community all "feels fine be it silk or slime" implying now that he looks back it seems foreign and superficial.<br /> <br /> It's like after he left (tap their sunday heads...) he finally woke up from this trance and his "town seems hardly worth the time", once they get out they will not have to subject to the standarziation in order to get ahead. <br /> <br />
The correct lyric is "foals in winter coats".