Black Out Days

I can't help but feel like this is somehow, even inadvertently, connected to Dissociative Identity Disorder or even just regular dissociation. I have a friend with DID and it just seems like a mirror to them. Black out days are days they don't remember. When the alter takes over, they often have no memory of what has happened, and when they come back, it's like having had a black out. A thousand voices, while being a huge number, reminds me of how sometimes even when that person is themselves, the alter can still echo in their head. Even the mirror on the wall, there's a disconnect between who you are and what you're seeing. I don't know, this is the vibe I'm getting.

This seems an obvious interpretation but I will say it.
This song (like many others) always reminds me of when I was too deep into the drugs. I knew that they were making me insane but giving them up would be to "hide the sun". I longed to know how to stay away from their influence. The resulting cognitive dissonance made for experiences that were intensely frightening (the head voices), a strong contrast from the initial feelings of euphoria. "I don't even recognize you anymore"

I interpret themes of drug and/or alcohol dependancy, maybe even mental illness of some kind. possibly bipolar or schizophrenia. I personally find this song really sad.

In my opinion I really like songs like this and fade into you by Mazzy star because for some people they are sad songs and for others they are happy. And with these types of songs I don't think they have one meaning, I think they can have several depending on what you've been through and what you relate to in the song.

Guys, I think you got it all wrong. This magnificent Phantogram song doesn't talk about drugs or psychological disorders, let alone obsessive loves.

She just talks about losing faith in love and living in a corrupted world where you can only trust in yourself.

And it must be interpreted not only through its lyrics, but with the powerful melody, Sarah's beautiful voice and the music video that is loaded with complementary symbolism.

It starts with a flame that is almost extinguished, a heat that has died out, with the glow of the sun going away and all the darkness that it hid coming out. This is what should makes those around us save their judgment, because we are already confused by all the voices in our heads telling us what to do or not to do.

"Speaking in tongues" is making yourself understandable: which is difficult when we are overwhelmed by the emotion of a feeling that slowly dies within us without the person who awakened them care about, and any message they will give us later can easily be misunderstood.

So what do we have left but to come back to ourselves? As the great John Frusciante would say, we just don't throw our lives away - like we did in a break up - when we just going inside. And to move on, we need to resolve the issues that an end needs. The only person who can tell us how to do this is the one whose reflection we see every day in a mirror. Only this person can tell us all the ways in which we can stay away from pain.

And it was all these painful events that she or he caused us to pass that caused them, for our consideration of them, to dig a hole for themselves. But that's not will stay like this, because we are so angry at what they have done to us that our hands burn with sparks to repay all this indifference and cruelty. If we could, like Carrie we would rain blood on their heads.

So it is better that them all just stay away, and we retreat into our dark days where we go to trust only in our egos, bathe in the gold of a capitalist world without genuine values, abandon the traditions of the wisdom of our elders, and not to surrender even to the fatherly love we would give to our offspring, like wolves in a pack.

In the end, that person whose face we know so well will just be unrecognizable to us. Our eyes will be blackened when the early flame has let out its last smoke.

This here is just a synthesis. I point out that in order to fully understand all the depth of this song is very useful to analyze its music video, which greatly enriches its interpretation - with the old man and his regretful and judgmental gaze holding the owl representing wisdom; with the worker who begins to bathe in the ink of a world painted in gold, representing his total surrender to the riches of this world; the indigenous child wearing the wolf's skin and representing the family; the goat's head representing evil being suddenly and violently destroyed, and then presented as a trophy by the golden woman; the guy being drowned in a milk tub, a fantastic allegory of drowning in the life and be able to stand withstanding his blows; the black monster, a representation of our ego and our psychological shadow that inside is filled by the need for riches (to survive); the seductive woman in her dark glamor; and so many other things that I could mention but which I believe have been enough.

Phantogram is one of my favorite bands, and I already been listening to this song and watching your video everyday for months by now.

Considering many other Phantogram songs, this is looking back at the, the days of distorted, forgotten, lost, unsettled memory, from When I'm Small being "underground", with "lucy", wanting to be thrown "in the flames" ... "the black out days."

"Dig a hole," but unlike When I'm Small, keep the depths away, look to the sky.

Discrepancy on the parenthesized lyrics at the end, They're definitely not all the same. I hear "they're not mine" in one of them, as in the voices aren't theirs anymore, "Black out days, I don't even recognize you anymore"

pretty solid

This could just be my take on it, but this definitely feels like a bad break up song. The sort the breaks down your whole world and the only thing you can do it build your confidence and life back up after the rug has been pulled out from under you,

I believe this is about a girl obsessing about a guy. I think Black out Days means she wish she could black out the days she is away from him, but she is realizing all of this and wishes she could stay away, or wants him to. She knows that as long as he is around, she will never break free from that obsession. Or I guess apply any addiction to this theory. She does mention looking in the mirror, maybe coming to a realization of the problem?

This feels like a bad breakup song. The lyrics feel like someone struggling with controlling their obsessive thoughts about someone destroying their world. The narrator knows they are doing it to themselves at this point, but never the less is letting their pain control their actions, outlook, and reasoning. The line about the stars...beautiful things are painful and are seen through the veil of pain. It's a good song that elicits the powerful and destructive emotional pain, in both lyrics and outright shrieking.