This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
October came
Our case got stuck with the day again
They pulled up the welcome mat
So many times they hurt their back
As sure as clocks are bleeding time
We'll show up early just to wait in line
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
As August came
Our case is drawing to an end
They said guilty so many times
All I heard was just the buzzing lights
As sure as lead sinks were the same
We're just more laundry that they need to hang
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
October came
Our case got stuck with the day again
They pulled up the welcome mat
So many times they hurt their back
As sure as clocks are bleeding time
We'll show up early just to wait in line
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
As August came
Our case is drawing to an end
They said guilty so many times
All I heard was just the buzzing lights
As sure as lead sinks were the same
We're just more laundry that they need to hang
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping
We won't be sleeping in our autumn beds
Lyrics submitted by IceCuban06, edited by sheionizes
Autumn Beds Lyrics as written by Isaac Brock Eric Judy
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I don't think it's necessarily about sex. It's about wanting to start the day with some love and affection. Maybe a warm cuddle. I'm not alone in interpreting it that way! For example:
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wow, i can't believe people don't think this song is about death.
"autumn" is typically a reference to the end of one's life. the "autumn years" it's as if your life is represented by a calendar year, you're a baby in a brand new year, then spring comes and you discover life, summer is middle age, and as you wind down your life, autumn comes.
He's talking about not wanting to die, or "sleep in his autumn bed"
The trial is another metaphor for life/death. Everyone's life is a "trial" and at the end of it, we ALL get the same sentence...death.
the song IS a little repetetive tho. they couldve thrown in another verse or something. no complaints tho!
anyone else see my point of view on the meaning of the song?
I agree with you in regards to the autumn years which is a time for retirement and resting and having fun, however, if you didn't save up for it you definitely won't be sleeping in your autumn bed and will be slaving away trying to get by. It is my belief that many of Modest Mouse's songs are about the American lifestyle. Just throwing my 2 cents in...
It's a beautiful song. Sat on my ass, worked my fingers to the bone pressing the "refresh" button on spinner.com waiting for this to stream for about two maybe three hours on Tuesday. (I am well aware I just made a reference to another Modest Mouse song, by the by.)
It's nice and peaceful. Has the Ugly Casanova vibe. I've been missing that.
Yeah it does have an Ugly Cassanova vibe, which I too have missed. I also miss the Holopaw singers vocals over Modest Mouse styled music (the soft stuff, such as this song)
okay i think ive found a way to make this connect with the whole 'sailor story continuation' theory:
-in dashboard the ship is destroyed and theyre stranded -in here its like theyre knocked out and are almost dead but the afterlife 'pulls up the welcome mat' on them and they realize what happened so they wouldnt be 'sleeping in their autmn beds' -and whale song is theyve been swallowed up by the whale and now they have to find a way out
but idk. i didnt write the song
straight-up love this song
this is sucha beautiful song modest mouse is amazing i wish i could have even half the talent of any of them the whole song just remides me of fall and the feeling of fatigue
I love the kazoos. It just completes this song
Although, I'm pretty sure it's "they pulled out the welcome mat" not "they rolled up the welcome mat."
I enjoyy this song It's a bit repetitive though,i'm not complaining but still (: But I don't get how it's an autumm bed..
Just got this single along with the whale song at my radio station. It came with lyrics and the only things wrong with the lyrics above are:
They pulled UP the welcome mat(because they have been there so many times, and each time they are NOT welcome, and the people at the court hurt their backs pulling up the welcome mat figuratively speaking.)
AND
WE'LL show up early just to wait in line (there is more than one person involved in all of this, as you can tell with the WE throughout.)
This is about the dragging out of a trial and after some time the subject of the song along with an accomplice is found guilty of a crime. They were found guilty in august, so their Autumn Beds just represent where they would be sleeping more comfortably in the upcoming season, fall.
Modest Mouse is releasing an EP this august of songs that didn't make it onto Good News and We Were Dead. This was definately off the Good News set.
I heard it was a continuation from the sailor characters in "We Were Dead..." It seems to make sense except why does October come before August? Surely the trial wasn't almost a year long when they were THAT guilty. I love the song but that is driving me nuts. I can't wait to hear the kazoo live though.
I'm uncertain as to why such a thing is "driving you nuts", as it were. There's no real indication that they were THAT guilty, merely that once it came time to sentencing they were found guilty on all the apparent charges. There's no real indication (at least to me) in the lyrics that it was obvious to all involved that they were overwhelmingly, obviously guilty. A ten month duration between the time the D.A. (apparently reluctantly) picked up their case (again) to the time of sentencing seems like a believable, realistic amount of time for such a thing to work its way through the courts system (the nature of the charges would obviously dictate the length of time such a case would take; however, it is never specified in the song what they are being charged with.)
This song surely belongs on We Were Dead. I would say it goes near Fly Trapped In A Jar. The Whale song would have been a better ending than People as Places as People, too. I've Got it All(most) and King Rat are from Good News. The others are likely original content.
I'm pretty sure that King Rat was recorded during the We Were Dead Sessions in Mississippi. I've Got It All (Most) is certainly from the Good News days.
wasn't invisible the endingfor We Were Dead? I agree Whale Song woulda been a great ending for that album though.
It seems to me that Autumn would have a double meaning. Being the autumn that Synergistic put forth and then the Autumn in the literal sense, in that they WON'T because it just happens to be August and it's not like they're getting out soon, especially not in the first term of the sentence if it also pertains to the Synergistic theory.
Of course this could almost be completely literal, as Brock himself was incarcerated for a short while, so it could be a residual song from when that occurred. And this seems that with the theme of the album, Good News rather than We Were Dead. But the feel is a little bit skewed for EITHER album.