Terrible Love

The A.V. Club's review of High Violet gives a pretty good idea of the overall lyrical theme of the album and this song. "On High Violet, the band’s fifth overall, Berninger opens up like never before, using apocalyptic images of floods, bee swarms, and even brain-eating zombies to express the fear of a man who now must put a wife and young child ahead of himself." "[...] taking on a potentially trite subject–being a new father–and making listeners feel the sledgehammer pounding of a scared (but committed) man’s heart."

Here's my interpretation. Hopefully others can point out flaws in my understanding of the lyrics, or offer other meanings that never occurred to me. I don't think the lyrics are that cryptic to break apart, but it took me a while to give consistent meaning to every single line.

It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders, It's a terrible love and I'm walking in, It's quiet company,

The words terrible love, while also alluding to being infatuated and deeply in love, describe the heavy feelings of fear and anxiety from starting and loving a family. Spiders refers to creeping and tingling feelings, and the fear of walking into a web, to be doomed. Walking in refers to committing oneself despite said fears. Quiet company refers to how the feeling isn't really expressed out loud or saying anything; it's just there, lingering, and the future isn't certain. Another meaning I find likely is that quiet company refers keeping oneself composed and together, and not breaking apart from the feelings of fear and anxiety.

And I can't fall asleep without a little help, It takes a while to settle down, my shivered bones, until the panic's out, It takes an ocean not to break,

The meaning here seems clear enough to not need much explanation. There's a terrible amount of stress, and in turn it takes a terrible amount of will and effort not to break under the pressure of it all. Matt mocking himself makes sense sense as well, given his frequent wine drinking--it takes an ocean of alcohol not to break.

But I won't follow you into the rabbit hole, I said I would but then I saw your shivered bones, they didn't want me to,

Rabbit hole is an Alice in Wonderland reference, and describes the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed in a strange new world--i.e. of being a new parent. On a personal level for Matt, "you" refers to his wife. Matt saw that his wife has the same fear and anxiety as he does, and so he wants to be strong for her, to be the help for her as she's been for him. Matt (quietly) resolves not to mess it up and to be a good husband and father.