Graceless

The "God loves everybody, don't remind me" line strikes me. It's perfect. He doesn't feel worthy of that love, he's sick of hearing that from everyone. It sounds like he's made a lot of mistakes, and doesn't want to be told that he is still loved, because he feels he doesn't deserve being cared for after the thing's he's done.

It seems like he is stuck outside of her "windows" which I view as her eyes. (They're the window to the soul.) The majority of the song is from a perspective where he is outside of her windows, blocked out of seeing the beauty and grace inside her mind, soul, heart.

Official lyrics from album sleeve:

Graceless Is there a powder to erase this? Is it dissolvable and tasteless? You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm graceless Don't have the sunny side to face this I am invisible and weightless You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm gone Through the glass again Just come and find me God loves everybody, don't remind me I took the medicine and I went missing Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

Graceless I figured out how to be faithless But it will be a shame to waste this You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm gone Through the glass again Just come and find me God loves everybody, don't remind me I took the medicine and I went missing Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

All of my thoughts of you Bullets through rotten fruit Come apart at the seams Now I know what dying means

I am not my rosy self Left my roses on my shelf Take the white ones, they're my favorites It's the side effects that save us

Grace Put the flowers you find in a vase If you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste Grace

There's a science to walking through windows There's a science to walking through windows There's a science to walking through windows There's a science to walking through windows without you

All of my thoughts of you Bullets through rotten fruit Come apart at the seams Now I know what dying means

I am not my rosy self Left my roses on my shelf Take the white ones, they're my favorites It's the side effects that save us Grace

Here's what I think. This song appears to me to be about hiding the inner emotions you feel when someone has left you or broken your heart. You don't want to let on that you're feeling this way because you know it only brings people down, so you have to find a way to keep it inside.

"Is there a powder to erase this?/Is it dissolvable and tasteless?", he cynically treats it like an illness. He goes on about his feelings, that while he doesn't "have the sunny side to face this", he reminds himself to be "invisible and weightless", showing nothing to those around him.

I think eventually he tries so hard to remove his feelings that he ends up feeling cold and dead inside. "I'm trying, but I'm gone.", as though he slips into this other world, where emotions have no meaning. He's "gone through the glass again", he "took the medicine and I went missing". He appears to just want someone to find him and listen to him drain his emotions out on the table, whilst at the same time wanting the one he loves and misses: "just let me hear your voice, just let me listen".

Finally, as though he found someone to tell all his problems to, he lets out in chorus: "all my thoughts of you, bullets through rotten fruit. Come apart at the seams. Now I know what dying means." All the while he is reassuring the one he's talking to that he's not normally this way, this isn't his "rosy self", but reveling in his own self-pity: "Left my roses on my shelf. Take the white ones they're my favourites."

During the bridge he's clearly trying to explain to this guy what he's learned from this experience he's had: "there's a science to walking through windows", slipping into that state where you feel cold and remorseless, because after all, "if you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place."

Pretty sure it's "All of my thoughts of you, bullets through rotten fruit" not "rock and through"

I can't help but think that this is some kind of suicide note. He's been struggling with depression and is now prepared to kill himself. Hence, "walking through windows" is actually jumping out of a window. The roses and flowers represent memories about the speaker. He asks his interlocutor to keep the white ones (i.e. good memories) and preserve them.

We see how he's tried different solutions but nothing has actually helped. Medication has done nothing for him, and people seem to be talking him into religion, but it does not work ("God loves everybody, don't remaind me"). Thus, he is faithless and desperate.

I find the verse "bullets through rotten fruit" to be quite powerful. In my opinion it conveys a sense of carelessness associated with depression. Thoughts are racing through his head all the time but none of them actually matters, nor can they prevent the speaker from commiting suicide.

This song for me is about facing one's own mortality, contrasted with the complications of being alive here and now. It takes a bold and conscious change in perspective, i.e. "walking though the windows", to see the big picture of life and death.

Going through daily life is a graceless endeavor by definition, and Matt Berninger expresses his frustration and sentiments related to the nagging urge to change this, as well as the unpleasantness of having to accept certain things.

"I'm trying, but I'm graceless Don't have the sunny side to face this I am invisible and weightless You can't imagine how I hate this"

The trick to set oneself free is a bold change of perspective, going off the beaten track, "through the glass" and not the door, and perhaps a little madness:

"I'm trying, but I'm gone Through the glass again Just come and find me God loves everybody, don't remind me I took the medicine and I went missing"

Wherever he is in life, mentally and emotionally, he knows God still loves him, and sounds happy and confident, with a deeper understanding of life. "Now I know what dying means", he utters as he reaches an epiphany about his own mortality.

"It's the side effects that save us" is yet another insight about life, about how the unintended or the negative sometimes end up being essential and miraculous.

"Put the flowers you find in a vase" is a plea to value and savor the beauty of being alive, to seize and enjoy the moment. Yet, he emphasizes that to be able to truly reach that understanding one has to let go of worldly concerns, by uttering: "If you're dead in the mind it will brighten the place".

However no matter how enlightened one might feel after reaching an epiphany about life and death, it doesn't come that naturally, nor is it easy. "There's a science to walking through windows", he repeats, referring to breaking free and choosing one's own path, in this case the windows. This is especially hard to achieve all alone, hence he adds "...without you" in the final line. A sincere confession that bares his soul as just another lonely human being who ultimately needs someone to share this insight to be able to truly feel and enjoy it...

For me, this song is incredibly obviously about depression.

I've been clinically depressed on and off for roughly five years, and this song describes my outlook so beautifully. The line that first caught my attention was "God loves everybody, don't remind me." Growing up in a religious community, the first instinct in a crisis is always to pray, but after spending all of your adolescence depressed, the last thing you want to hear is about God. If God loves me, why have I been suffering for so long? Even though you hear over and over again that God loves you, that you are special, it's impossible to reconcile your misery with that love.

I think the title, "Graceless" is a bit of a pun. Within Christianity, the state of Grace is the state of being filled with God's love. If your disorder is keeping you from feeling God's love, you are without grace in the spiritual sense, as well as in the vernacular.

The second line I noticed was "I am not my rosy self." For me, that's the hell of living with depression--I know there's a better, more functional me hidden somewhere underneath layers and layers of self-loathing and mis-firing neurons, and I spend a lot of time beating myself up for not being her anymore. Why can't I be my better self, why am I stuck with this tub who can't get out of bed most days? I am not myself.

In general, the rose/fruit metaphor really stands out to me. The idea of not wanting to the "roses" die on the vine really struck me, especially in relation to the above bit about not being myself. I don't want to waste all the potential that my better self has, I want to capture and utilize that potential, but right now, I can't.

There's also a lot that seems to be about anti-depressants, but I think that's plain enough without my rambling!

Love this song!

I don't think this really has any interpersonal relationship meaning. I think it's all about taking medicine to cope with whatever, depression most likely. They make him feel better but he hates how they affect him; he feels like someone else. He hates that he can't beat the depression without them.

Maybe its cause I just went through a break up with a girl called Grace, but I really reckon that this song is about being without someone you love. He's heartbroken and the line "Is there a powder to erase this?" kinda suggests that maybe he's turning to drugs like coke, in an attempt to numb himself to the heartbreak. The rest of it pretty much speaks for itself. I know my thoughts aren't nearly as deep as a lot of the ones on here, but to me dealing with this whole break up with Grace I felt as though this fit into my situation perfectly and summarised how I felt exactly. I felt shit, because I was without Grace- I was Grace-less. Ya feel me?

Personally the song to me is about a quiet, introvert0esque guy or gal, who is deeply in love with someone who, for whatever reason, either doesnt know like him or more likely, doesnt know who he is. Graceless being how he feels whenever he is near her.

"I'm trying, but I'm graceless Don't have the sunny side to face this I am invisible and weightless You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless"

He is "trying" to work up the nerve to speak with her or make a move but he is "graceless" he has no "sunny side to face this", He hates it obviously "You can't imagine how i hate this"

"I'm trying, but I'm gone Through the glass again Just come and find me God loves everybody, don't remind me I took the medicine and I went missing Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen"

He is trying but he went "through the glass again", Maybe that means he blundered? "God loves everybody" He knows he is loved but he wants her love. At this point anything form her is good for him. "Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen"

"All of my thoughts of you Bullets through rotten fruit Come apart at the seams Now I know what dying means"

This verse really brings it home. All of his thoughts, what he plans on saying seems so clear to him "bullets through rotten fruit" but when he is about to make any move the words just die "Come apart at the seams" and fall apart. He is watching her and seeing her live and exsist not knowing of him and it is killing him on the inside "Now i know what dying means"

Thats actually all i got, but that just seems right personally.