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"
If to borrow is to take and not return
I have borrowed all my lonesome life
And I can't, no I can't get through
The borrower's debt is the only regret of my youth
And believe me it's not easy when I look back
Everything I took got soon returned
Just to be at Innisfree again
All of the sirens are driving me over the stern
Just to be at Innisfree again
All of the sirens are driving me over the stern
One day at Innisfree
One day that's mine there
In the street one day I saw you among the crowd
In a geometric patterned dress
Gleaming white just as I recall
Old as I get I will never forget it at all
Gleaming white just as I recall
Old as I get I could never forget it at all
One day at Innisfree
One day that's mine there
I have borrowed all my lonesome life
And I can't, no I can't get through
The borrower's debt is the only regret of my youth
And believe me it's not easy when I look back
Everything I took got soon returned
Just to be at Innisfree again
All of the sirens are driving me over the stern
Just to be at Innisfree again
All of the sirens are driving me over the stern
One day at Innisfree
One day that's mine there
In the street one day I saw you among the crowd
In a geometric patterned dress
Gleaming white just as I recall
Old as I get I will never forget it at all
Gleaming white just as I recall
Old as I get I could never forget it at all
One day at Innisfree
One day that's mine there
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If to borrow is to take and not return I have borrowed all my lonesome life
**The song starts off by rethinking the nature of borrowing. In the context of this song, I believe the singer is referring to how he borrows love. To him, borrowing means taking someone's love but never offering his own; instead, when he is done, he gives everything back and leaves.
And I can't, no I can't get through The borrower's debt is the only regret of my youth
**He regrets never trying to share his love.
And believe me it's not easy when I look back Everything I took got soon returned
**His memories are filled with people who offered to share love, or some type of experience, but to them he was never able to offer anything back.
Just to be at Innisfree again All of the sirens are driving me over the stern
**He's going mad longing for that time when he didn't care.
In the street one day I saw you among the crowd In a geometric pattern dressed Gleaming white just as I recall Old as I get I will never forget it at all Gleaming white just as I recall Old as I get I will never forget it at all
**He'll always remember the girl who he thought he could love but never did. He'll always remember how she is just another person who gave him her love, and how he always viewed their situation as temporary and eventually gave back what he was borrowing. He knows that he has hurt people.
@poetogethr There's nothing to suggest the person in the dress was a woman. Does it matter?
@poetogethr I love your interpretation because it speaks to me so well
ok who's with me that this song is about someone's experience on DMT? let me provide some support here:
geometric patterns are the most common effect hallucinated while on DMT. that fact that the "dress" is gleaming white also lends itself to a hallucination. also DMT is a substance which cause such intense experiences that it is natural that "as old as [he gets he] will never forget it at all" and that it will always be "just as [he recalls]." that is the strongest support for my claim, but the rest of the song is interesting when applied to this theory
Innisfree is a recurring theme and what is Innisfree? in the real world it is a lake of some sort in ireland. however in the poem which popularized Innisfree by William Butler Yeats it is an imaginary utopia that encompasses all the desires and dreams an individual has. it emphasizes a natural existence based in agriculture, of which robin pecknold is fond. so this Innisfree is where the person is during his DMT experience. and while he is there, the sirens are his sheer joy and pleasure at the experience. they are literally "driving [him] over the stern" of his existence, as he wants to reach their island (Innisfree) faster than his ship (reality). he didn't know something so beautiful could exist.
there is also a lot about borrowing, taking, returning, and this resonates with my idea about being in and out of reality. in the sense of this DMT experience, he borrows reality, taking it with the expectation not to return. his experience also validates this because he does not necessarily want to return, he's at his Innisfree. however all that is good must end and he does in fact return his reality, and the disparity between reality and his reality are great and probably upsetting. he is now left with a debt; a debt both to his body because he has "borrowed all [his] life" so the substance has taken a toll on mind and body, and ultimately his existence (soul) for ever having known and loved Innisfree. it's not real and but yet it still haunts him, and it's not easy for him to look back on it. and in a dual sense the sirens of real life are driving him out of his mind. he cannot put up with the inferiority of reality and longs for Innisfree
woooo i enjoy this interpretation. let me know what you think
I'm kind of surprised no one has thought of this yet. That's probably because it's too obvious. I could be wrong, seeing as how Fleet Foxes' songs usually mean more than what they do on first listen, but I think this is sung from the POV of a prisoner.
Just think about it.
"If to borrow is to take and not return I have borrowed all my lonesome life."
He was a thief.
"And I can't, no I can't get through The borrower's debt is the only regret of my youth."
Now he's paying the price. He's imprisoned, "can't get through," meaning he can't get out. In retrospect he regrets his actions.
"And believe me it's not easy when I look back Everything I took I'd soon return,"
I imagine him alone, sitting his cell, remembering over and over again what put him in there. Wishing he could change the past.
"Just to be at Innisfree again All of the sirens are driving me over the stern."
Innisfree is a metaphor for freedom here. In the Yeats poem, Innisfree symbolizes peaceful, natural, out-doorsy (for lack of a better word lol) surroundings. So obviously he wants to breath fresh air and get out. The sirens can mean two things: police car sirens which is kind of too literal, and temptation. I like the temptation one. He's looking back at the what made him steal. Maybe he's a kleptomaniac ;)
"One day at Innisfree, that's mine there."
Fantasizing about freedom and a normal life. From the poem: "While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray/I hear it in the deep heart's core." Just like the character in the song, he can cling to the image of Innisfree to feel at peace in the least peaceful of times.
"In the street one day I saw you among the crowd In a geometric pattern dress Gleaming white just as I recall Old as I get I will never forget it at all."
This is especially sad because I think it's him reminiscing about the love of his life. Or, she could have been someone he barely knew, but always admired. Either way, she represents the potential for love and happiness that he squandered. Now he can't forget that day, maybe the last day of freedom he had, even if he spends the rest of his life getting "old" in jail.
It's really such a perfect story that even if this interpretation is wrong, I don't give a shit because it's how I'll always hear it.
"all of the sirens are driving me over the stern"
greek mythology, if the sailors heard the sirens' song, they would be drawn to it. the stern is the back of the boat i think. my guess would be that this has something to do with resisting temptation.
and "adding is free" is definitely "at innisfree". some memory he wants to go back to.
I can't explain every lyric but I really think that this song is about him taking the virginity of the girl in the bedouin patterned dress.
First it is set in his youth and he is stealing and the only thing he regretted was being punished. He looks back as to how things he took were returned (and he doesn't say by him which I think is significant) and I think this is up until the point this line is true until the siren/this beautiful girl he can't resist drives him over the stern, so most likely back into taking things.
Then he talks about her gleaming white, white being a classic sign of purity and virginity and he says he will never forget her so I'm guessing that's why.
I'm not really sure where Innisfree and a bedouin patterned dress comes into this. I was kind of thinking that this was him saying she really stuck out to him from anyone else there because the imagery one might think of when they hear Innisfree really contrasts a typical geometric bedouin pattern and if she was from anywhere in the middle east she would've been very different looking than anyone on an island in Ireland which maybe shows that this was just lust, which goes along with the theme of him taking things. I think how he talks of her now, never being able to forget her is a lot more in the tone of regret now as he looks back then how he would've talked about her at the time.
Does anyone think this a legitimate interpretation?
I can agree with your interpretation, if you go with it that way I'm not sure how he could return virginity, but I guess apologizing for his actions could be what he meant. The girl(s)are the siren, and he saw them and was attracted, and slpet with them, or was just attracted to them. Being at innisfree would be to be in a place where he was happy. The dress I agree could be purity, there was one girl he either didn't sleep with, or only one he was in love with, but she didn't know, or didn't want him also. So, when he sees her again she is pure (white dress0 and still a vrigin.
@AmeliaLH Why do you think the person in the bedouin dress was female?
I will need some help determining the exact lyrics of this song within the next year.
I'm positive it's "if to borrow is to take and not return". Awesome lyrics, incredible song.
He's talking about Innisfree, a reference to a William Butler Yeats poem:<br /> "Just to be at Innisfree again..."<br /> "One day at Innisfree,<br /> one day that's mine."<br /> <br /> If you read the poem it totally makes sense. For further evidence look up lyrics for The Shrine/An Argument, he mentions it again in that song.
you hit the nail on the head with everything accept the chorusy thing, I originally thought it was "born in the air, born in the air" but as it turns out you and I are both wrong it's "wood in the hand, wood in the hand" give it a listen again and I think you'll come to agree with me :)
oh, and the a capella part is "wood in hand" hope this is of some use, makes more sense when you read it this way :)
@huggernaut8 Your comment is for "Quiet Houses" and the lyric, I think, is "darkening" or "darkenin'" - indicating the night is coming, lover, come lay with me.
this what i hear on the version released on hopelessness blues [2011]
if to borrow is to take and not return i have borrowed all my lonesome life and i can't no i can't get through the borrower's debt is the only regret of my youth
and believe me it's not easy when i look back everything i took got soon returned just to be adding it's free again all of the sirens are driving me over the stern
just to be adding it's free again all of the sirens are driving me over the stern
one day added is free one day that's my [something]
in the street one day i saw you among the crowd in a geometric pattern dressed gleaming white just as i recall old as i get i will never forget it at all gleaming white just as i recall old as i get i will never forget it at all
The album is actually called "Helplessness Blues", and I agree with your interpretation of the lyrics except for a few things:<br /> <br /> Line 7: "adding it's free" should be changed to "at Innisfree"<br /> <br /> Line 9: "adding it's free" should be changed to "at Innisfree"<br /> <br /> Line 11: "adding is free" should be changed to "at Innisfree" <br /> <br /> Line 14: "dressed" should be changed to "dress"<br /> <br /> Line 18: "will" should be changed to "could"<br /> <br /> And finally you're missing the last two lines of the song which are:<br /> "One day at Innisfree"<br /> "One day that's my [something]"
Correction (not to sound like a snob)<br /> Its HELPlessness Blues. Not HOPElessness Blues.<br /> Sorry.
Could someone please post the correct lyrics? Which I believe glockliberty posted above here. The ones that are listed must have been from an older version, because with some of the some leaking it's easy to hear.
And by "some of the some" I meant "some of the songs" haha.
I agree, the lyrics that are currently posted were likely taken from live performances. glockliberty's version (along with my corrections in the reply) is about 99% correct. Unfortunately I don't think that they'll be corrected any time soon since Cilogy is the only one that can edit the lyrics and Cilogy hasn't logged in since July of 2010. If someone contacts the admins we might be able to change the lyrics though.
@hewls183 Those are the correct lyrics..They are a reference to The Lake Isle Of Innisfree a poem by the poet William Butler Yeats that deals with escaping the business and demands of the modern world and finding peace in nature
@hewls183 the lyrics have been corrected to be the right lyrics since I made this comment three years ago.
@tomprdf4 the lyrics have been corrected to be the right lyrics since I made this comment three years ago.