Now I notice the streetlamp's hum
The ghosts of graffiti they couldn't quite erase
The blank-faced stares on the subway
As the people go home
The parks lay empty like my unmade bed
The streets are silent like my lifeless telephone
And this is where I live, but
I've never felt less at home
So I'm not unsympathetic
I see why you left
There's no one to know
There's nothing to do
The city's been dead
Since you've been gone

Sometimes I stand on my roof at night
And watch, as something seems to happen somewhere else
I feel like the breeze will pick me up and carry me away
Out and over this iridescent grid
Up and away from the bar fights and neon lights
Out and away from everything that makes me what I am
So I'm not unsympathetic
I see why you left
There's no one to know
There's nothing to do
The city's been dead
Since you've been gone

Oh I never had just whatever it is you want, baby
And I really tried, I tried with all my might—it made me crazy
To try to figure out what it is I've done wrong every time
When everything I love, everything I hold dear
Heads out sometime
And all I ever say now is good-bye.


Lyrics submitted by 66exeter, edited by rockaction

The City Lyrics as written by Aron Erlichman Jordon Kristopher Terrell

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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The City song meanings
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21 Comments

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  • +1
    General Comment

    i love this song... pretty straightforward but oh so evocative. the "since you've been gone..." the song just climbs, stalls, and then dives back in again... my favourite ever break up song.

    geezershoeon May 01, 2003   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    great song, i really like lines 21-32 cuz they mean something to me

    kitoon June 22, 2002   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    great song, i really like lines 21-32 cuz they mean something to me

    kitoon June 22, 2002   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    i love this song because i can just picture the scene in my head. someone stands on the top of the roof, its a dark night, one of those nights in july where it so hot that the temperature of the air and the temperature of your skin are the same and you can't tell where you end...and he's standing there and noticing all the little details of the city that has alienated him, and thinking about this person who left making him feel more alone...and then he feels the breeze and wishes that it would blow him away, out of this city that he lives in....away from all the memories of the person who left. the city has lost its charm. he grew up there, it was a part of him, and now he can't stand it. he is sick of saying goodbye. i can just picture the whole setting.

    jeez i read into that song too much

    fraeuleinon July 05, 2002   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I love the pseudo-techno beat that this song is fitted to. It's so fucking different.

    WhiteTideon May 11, 2003   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    This is my favorite D-plan song, the last verse is so great.

    suffokateon November 21, 2004   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    interesting that fraeulein imagines the song in warmth. I've always felt the city's pretty cold and grey, with ppl in the subway wearing big coats.... maybe its my experiences of where i live... and possibly cos i always seem to pair this track up with Spider in the Snow

    InfiniteJesteron December 08, 2004   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    do we know what city he's talking about here, cause i know the plan is from dc, but this song just makes me think of boston sooo much.

    xthestarslaughdxon July 18, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I always imagined to be sitting in a cab, watching the streetlamps go by one by one. The song also gives me the feeling of seeing random people walking down the street that you've never seen before. This song reminds me of how I moved away from New York for 5 years, and moved back, and realized that everything was different, but at the same time, not.

    skammuniston December 06, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    i love everything they do, but honestly this is the song that seriously makes me want to cry when i realize i can never see them live

    powerofdenialon January 03, 2006   Link

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