It’s a call to younger generations to “change your mind” from worrying (tossing and turning means worrying) about their own personal desires/dreams (because they won’t last) … and instead use their “short while” on earth to love and leave the world better … and thereby enter heaven. Someone mentioned a Buddhist theme, but the emphasis of the Buddha was not much on leaving the world a better place, but rather on exiting the world. This song is far more of a Jewish-Christian message given that both of those wisdom traditions have a strong emphasis on making the world better. One of the biggest symbols in Christianty is the white dove, which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the love that flows back and forth between God and Christ - and also the flow of love between God/Jesus and humanity. Also in many places the Bible says “God is love.” So the lyrics of: will you carry “love with you. Will you ride the great white bird into heaven?” is probably a reference to the holy spirit. Google “holy spirit” and click on Images and almost 100% are of white doves. Likewise, both Judaism and Christianity emphasis that God expects us to make the world better, and convey that it affects whether we’ll get into heaven. It’s not the sole determinant, but it’s a factor. One example of many is in the passage about helping “the least of these,” Jesus says that those who don’t help people in the greatest need, they won’t access heaven. The Old Testament (Jewish sections before Jesus came) have similar themes. Likewise, in Buddhism a person can only reach heaven through their own efforts and without divine help, and we must spend countless lives doing tons of meditation to work off all of our karma and to develop enough virtues to eventually reach heaven. But Christianity conveys that we can get there sooner and easier with God’s help (love’s help), and we can’t do it on our own. So “riding” another being into heaven is the opposite of what the Buddha taught, and matches exactly with Christian teaching. The theme of not becoming attached to things is part of both Buddhism and Christianity. Cat’s parents were originally Greek Orthodox, but he was raised Catholic. They only attended church some of the time, so the family wasn’t very religious. But besides church, Cat said he also studied Christianity to some degree in school. So he would have been well aware of the meaning of a white dove. He did also do some reading about Buddhism, and that shows up in a few of his songs. But I don’t think this is really one of them. On the same album he has a song named “Jesus” in which he talks about both Jesus and Buddha. He wrote this album a few years before he became Muslim, and said it was before he even considered Islam or read any texts of Islam. So that didn’t influence Oh Very Young or any of his well-known songs. He stopped singing soon after his conversion.

[Removed by SongMeanings]

My Interpretation on this is that the narrator in the song used to be with a girl that he loved so much and but during that time he was one of the cool guys at school that lived freely(partying and alcohol, etc.) and he wasn't really able to get over his former glory. on the other hand, his girlfriend/ex matured, and started thinking about their future and got a job/career. and since he became much like an alcoholic bum of a sort, he got jealous with the girl having to work all the time having no time for him so didn't felt like "he mattered to her". somewhere in there, they broke up. so one night he went to her place all drunk so he's got this "too drunk to drive" excuse to stay. Trying to somehow patch things between them by telling her that she was "the best he ever had" and that he's really sorry for having "blew up" their relationship years ago, or else they'd still be together. On the second verse he was trying to tell her that all he really want is to be with her and that he has somehow improved that if she'd take him back, he'd no longer drink and sleep around and if she'll accept that he's still in the process of picking himself up and not to expect a great make over, then she might not be let down. The chorus is his way of telling her that they can still do what they used to find exiting or an adrenaline rush and that by doing so, even if the past is gone, they might still be able to pick-up some of the pieces of their past and replace their past failures with a renewed love to take it's place. The last part he says, "she took my heart", means he never got over her and probably never will. The line "there's only one thing I couldn't start", means that he couldn't actually start the conversation with her because he was too drunk to think straight and all of these words were just running inside his head and these were all the things he wanted to tell her.

He certainly did earn that reputation.

This song is def a twin to "Unfair" (a song she has been quoted as saying is about falling in love with someone who is already in a relationship) so it is presumably about the same person. Given the references to buying an apartment and not being able to see her love interest "after tonight," it's most likely that she's moving away and she'll "wait a day to break the bad news" (i.e. notifying him that she's leaving once she's already gone). And, of course, the fact that she sees in him a fellow "idealist" and "dreamer" (terms commonly given to people with the INFP personality on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)) portends that she'll always be left wondering if they would've been perfect together.