| Built to Spill – The Host Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song seriously moves me. The meaning seems pretty obvious to me (though I could be wrong of course). To me it's clearly about feeling like you've lost the thing that's the most important to you, the thing you've been fighting and competing for all this time. You had a special quality inside yourself that allowed you to do well in your quest for that dream, but now you've lost that special quality, and you're watching other people racing forward and reaching that dream that you wanted so badly. And you're comparing yourself to them - "why are they able to reach that dream goal, but I'm not able to?" > they never feel > they don't even seem real These people who are able to achieve my dream goal, they don't even seem like real human beings, they seem like they're impossibly talented / capable /smart /strong /whatever > they never try, so why should i They seemed to achieve the dream without even having to work hard for it, so why do I have to nearly kill myself with endless effort just to wind up not achieving my dream at all? It's cruelly unfair. > something is wrong > something invisible is gone At some point in the past, I had that special quality in me that allowed me to easily race towards the dream and I easily achieved successes, but now something has changed and I don't have that ability or luck or magic or whatever that made me one of the special people who were able to achieve the dream. > they never mind, so why should i Nothing bothers them (probably because their setbacks are small and infrequent), so why do I have to go through all this emotional hell just to try to get what they achieved so easily? In fact, this whole thing is crazy, why should I be trying to achieve this goal at all? Maybe I should just give up > don't you get hurt [ ? ] > don't you ever need a cure [ ? ] > don't you get tired [ ? ] > and why and why [ ? ] (I added the question marks to the lyrics transcribed here, because that's clearly the way the lines were meant.) Why does that person seem like their life is nearly perfect and everything always goes well for them? Doesn't anything ever hurt them?! Don't they ever have any problems? Don't they ever fail at anything? Don't they ever get depressed or frustrated? Don't they ever feel like they can't go on? etc.? > after awhile > after neither one (abides?) > they wont decide, so why should i These lines aren't really intelligible in the recording, so I can't say exactly what they mean, but it seems to be in a similar vein. They don't have to do (whatever it is) just to survive/succeed, so why do I have to do it just to keep my head above water? > when they hand it over > give it all away > well how can you explain They easily achieved the dream that I wanted so badly and that I worked for so incredibly hard for, yet could never attain. They easily achieved my unattainable dream, and to them it's like it's nothing. (either they treat the dream thing/position like it's junk and just let it fall to pieces, or that they're so good at what they do that they decide to freely share the wealth/knowledge/whatever with people, and even when they share their knowledge/skill/whatever, it's still something that I just can't grasp. > when they hand it over > no one gets their way > no one gets their (brain?) Again, these lines are a bit unintelligible in the recording, so it's hard to say exactly what they mean, but again, it seems to be in a similar vein. They either let the dream slip away / or they freely share their wealth/knowledge/skill whatever, and yet we're all still losers who can't ever achieve that thing that those people achieved so easily. > don't you get tired > of everyone that you admire I looked up to these people that "made it," and I wanted to be like them, but now that I've tried so hard and so long to achieve the same success that they have, but I've failed to achieve it, and now it seems clear that I'll *never* be able to reach that dream, because I simply don't have what it takes. So now I'm just sick and tired of thinking about these successful people, because now thinking about them only points out how much of a failure I am, and that I'm never going to be able reach that dream that I wanted so intensely and work my life away trying to reach. >they'll never die, so why should i (This is taking the idealization of the successful person to the most extreme levels of irrational unreal comparison thoughts) These people's lives are so perfect and they've achieved so much that their contributions to the world will always be remembered forever / or their contributions to the world will continue to ripple forward through humanity forever. > something is wrong > something invisible is gone > they never mind, so why should i > when they hand it over > give it all away > well how can you explain > when they hand it over (repeated lyrics, same meaning as above) > no one gets away > no one gets the blame I'm incredibly depressed and destroyed by the realization that I'll never attain my dream, but I can't blame my failure on anyone. I can't blame the people who did succeed, I can't blame my parent, I can't blame my grade school teachers, I can't blame my bosses, roommates, bandmates, lovers, or anyone. I probably can't even blame myself, because I tried as damn hard as I possibly could've. Yet I still failed. And somehow that makes it much worse. I can't blame anyone for my failure. The only reason why I failed is because, at my core, *I* just simply don't have what it takes to make my dream happen. I failed because I am inherently not good enough to do the one thing that I really wanted to do in life. TL;DR - I suck. |
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