Green Gloves

I think the green gloves are a symbol of jealousy and envy. I think he has been out of contact with his good friends and has grown jealous of them because he is not included. The drinking theme could be a way of getting closer to them. I think the jealousy in the last few lines is pretty obvious as he says he wants to win them over so they'll be his. I also think of gloves as a way of fighting to get back in, just like boxing gloves. he is fighting to win them over through jealousy and alcohol.

Matt Berninger was interviewed by Guy Garvey on 6 music about this song and he said it's about being away from your old friends (because of travelling/touring etc.) and kinda being scared that you'll lose touch with them but being alone, loving them and thinking about them; wanting to completely immerse yourself in their world and so be close to them.

They also discussed the forensic gloves imagery; how it suggests the thoroughness with which he wants to investigate his friends lives and also gives the song a slightly darker edge.

They didn't mention anything about the green->jealousy idea but I think that's a really interesting observation and there might be a lot in it.

I wish I could hear the interview again, it was awesome and was how I first found out about this amazing band.

Right now I'm with devilgirl, i think the green glves are those CSI latex gloves. But I'm gonna start at the beginning.

He talks about how he's losing touch with all of his friends, but he hopes that they are still staying together, and when he says, "I have arms for them" I think he's saying that he wants to see them again sometime. His arms are open, in other words.

When he talks about his green gloves, it's as devilgirl said. They are gloves for investigating. He can use them to find out what they are doing and how they're feeling.

I do agree with the alcohol them though. By the end of the song the lyrics and the sound is sorrowful in my opinion. It sounds like he's drinking somewhere dreaming about having the chance to get back in touch with them.

Amazing song anyway. I love the whole album.

Falling out of touch with all my friends are somewhere getting wasted, hope they’re staying glued together, I have arms for them.

i love that verse. makes the whole song for me. as far as the green gloves go, i think they symbolize his feeling of helplessness in wanting to get back into touch with his old friends, and he wishes he had something, green gloves, to help him get close to all his old friends again

On its own, to me, this song sounds like it’s about a friendship group he's drifted away from but they've all stayed close, while he's just been off on his own.

"Take another sip of them, it floats around and takes me over like a little drop of ink in a glass of water"

To me this part sounds like only needing to be back in their company for the tiniest while and everything about them creeps back into his life, not in a bad way. And yeah, drinking with them again, realising you've missed them, still loving them, having "arms for them"

The green gloves bit i think just suggests a detatchment though, that strange feeling when you start seeing people again who you used to be so close to, but you haven’t even been a part of thier life for so long. So the closeness you once shared is still lurking there but all your talking when you start seeing each other lacks a depth it used to have.

Getting into someones bed suggests so much intimacy, but with gloves on it’s more clinical, so yeah he’s doing everything he used to with them, but it doesn’t have that same depth anymore.

At any rate my favourite part is the Cinderella bit, that slow, foggy, drunken detatchment to the world you get and you think no one else can possibly ever feel like this and surely it’s a feeling only you know..?

And yeah the last verse is about re-establishing what you once shared.

I dunno, that was not so well explained, and over-explained in places also. But I certainly relate to it like that though. You may have guessed I love this song a lot hey.

I definitely think this is about isolation, and how feelings of isolation can often be emboldened, rather than assuaged, by the company of friends who seem to be able to be happy just by going out and "getting wasted". As he falls out of the group he pines for the days when he too could be happy just by going out and having fun with his friends all the time. I think the "green gloves" and "watch their videos/in their chairs" part is about him being so lonely that he sneaks into his friends' homes when they're "somewhere getting wasted" and pretends that their lives are his

i actually think alcohol is one of the bigger touchstones for the whole album. fake empire opens with "put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us"

i don't really know. i've only listened to it through once. seems to fit with the lyrics i've seen, though...and it definitely fits with the music.

Wow! Such enticing sounds are created in the beginning of this song. As soon as I heard that second guitar come in, I knew it was going to be one of my favourites.

The lyrics are pretty strange. What is the symbolism of the green gloves that give him power over other people? Is it an alcohol induced fantasy?

One of my favorites from the new album. Very cool imagery. My take is a little different.

I see the song as a narration of a night out drinking/socializing with friends. The narrator gets separated from his friends, though, and goes home with a new girl. The green gloves are what he wears when drinking and preening for the girl, and what he uses to keep himself emotionally distant. They could simply be the alcohol.

A wonderful song. I see the green gloves as those latex gloves that a CSI would wear while investigating a crime scene or that a forensic pathologist would wear while doing an autopsy. They symbolize wanting to really really get to know a person on a deep level.