| Blink-182 – Feeling This Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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TL;DR this song is about the violent and methodical kidnapping and rape of a woman from the perspective of a dominant male aggressor suffering from narcissistic personality disorder or sociopathy. "(Get ready for action!)" Narrator preparing the victim and probably himself for the crime ("action") he's about to commit. Possibly is whispering or saying it under his breath so as not to appear too ominous, though that's exactly what it is. "I got to regret right now" One of the only points of contrition for the act he is about to commit, this comes before anything has started which could suggest that something so terrible is going to happen that the narrator already feels guilty (maybe, kind of, but probably not really). Later in the song this will provide supporting evidence of multiple personalities or could allude to a brief separation of conscience from his presumably evil-minded ego. "The air is so cold and null" Describes the setting he is walking into, presumably where the victim is being held. "Cold" could be from air conditioning, or also a walk-in refrigerator. Likewise "Null" could refer to the 0 temperature in the refrigerator. Could also speak to the nature of the relationship between the narrator and the victim. Maybe they are not on good terms or had a falling out and thus the relationship is considered to be "cold." "Let me go in her room" Demanding entrance into, presumably, the victim's room, possibly a bedroom. However who would they be demanding it from? Themselves? This might suggest a conscience within the narrator exists and is at odds with itself. "Her room" could also be what they call the walk-in since they have kept her there. Maybe she has been stored there for so long they have romanticized the situation to where it appears domestic, where it's now become "her room". How cute. "I love all the things you do" Narrator talking to victim, possibly expressing genuine love or affection towards the victim which it seems they have been obsessing about. Perhaps it's said to gain sympathy from the victim as a form of emotional abuse. "Show me the way to bed" Narrator again telling, not asking, the victim to go to bed with them. Could mean a literal bed or the euphemism wherein they would have intercourse, or both. "Show me the way you move" Narrator telling the victim to perform in some physical manner. Could be as tame as telling her to dance for him, perhaps non-sexually, or as lascivious as telling her to perform sexual acts. In any case the context is such that there is nothing about this that sounds innocent. Reinforces narrator's dominant stance and viewpoint. Does he see every relationship this way? "Fucking it's such a blur" Now the narrator directly addresses sexual congress and describes it succinctly. Maybe it seems like "a blur" because of how quickly intercourse happened. Maybe they perceive it as "a blur" because they are inebriated chemically, whether it's alcohol, uppers (speed, cocaine, methamphetamine), or opiates. Rumors suggest that in real life Tom Delounge had an opiate addiction so maybe there is a tenuous connection to him through this line. Perhaps he's the narrator, or perhaps both he and Mark are or have been this narrator in real life together. Does this song serve as a tour story? This could potentially explain why there is a separation of conscience from ego/self earlier in the song. Perhaps one is the conscience and one is the true self. "I love all the things you do" Repeats praise of victim almost word for word from earlier. This suggests that they are stressing their affection for the victim as though they don't think the victim believes them. Repetition may also suggest a manic phase. "(I'm feeling this)" Excited, manic, self-motivating affirmation, repeated over and over with every thought. Has to repeat to themselves how exciting and "into it" they are as though they have to constantly convince themselves it's true because they can't naturally feel this emotion by itself. They have to tell themselves they're "feeling this" because that's the only way they can feel it. Possibly an example of sociopathic behavior, essentially people trying to feign genuine emotion because they cannot feel emotions naturally. CHORUS "Fate fell short this time" The narrator takes on the role of the Greek Chorus and addresses the audience directly by summarizing the victim's life for us. Her "fate fell short" because he has disrupted our given fate as humans to live a long, fufilling life in which we experience joy, pain, sadness, love, and the rest of human emotions, though never to excess. That is the life we are owed by birth. The "fate" in question "fell short" because the narrator robbed her of it somehow, whether it by rape or murder or kidnapping or all of the above. Her life will never be the same again as a result of their actions. "Your smile fades in the summer" Narrator speaking to victim in metaphor, explaining that her life will be ending. It's possible her life may not be literal and could just be speaking to the life she was living up until she was made into a victim. In any case, the narrator articulates that whatever that life is will come to an end, presumably at the narrator's hands. "Place your hand in mine" Narrator tells victim to literally take their hand or the hand could be figurative. Both interpretations reinforce dominance of narrator over victim, commanding her to perform as they ask. Both interpretations suggest the narrator demands trust, likely against the victim's will. The imagery of holding hands may also suggest the narrator perceives their relationship as being romantic. Perhaps this is their twisted take on the popular boyfriend/girlfriend cliches perpetuated beginning in the late 1950's on television and in movies. Or worse, perhaps this image is to suggest the bond of a parent and child, wherein the narrator is clearly taking the role of the parent. This would help to explain why the narrator is so persistent in their dominance over the victim throughout the song. This would also speak to the intense level of mental and emotional abuse that the victim is suffering through. "I'll leave when I wanna" The narrator reminds both victim and audience that they will act according to their own will, unfettered by the wishes of the victim, or the audience or morals in general. Also suggests the author will not physically leave the space where the victim is being held until they are ready, which reinforces the assumption that the victim is being held against their will. VERSE 2 "Where do we go from here?" Narrator asks themselves hypothetically how they should proceed with the situation, and probably with a sarcastic tone since we can assume they've been (mostly) in control of their actions this whole time. Everything has been so methodical to this point, it wouldn't make sense for them to ask what they should if the question wasn't rhetorical. Perhaps they ask out loud as though they're including the victim in the conversation when that's clearly not the case. Notice that she doesn't respond, whether it's because she can't or she refuses. In either case it's important to note that he does not give her a voice. "Turn all the lights down now" A command towards either the victim or themselves to darken the room. Now the room is cold, "null" and dark, possibly a bedroom and maybe less likely, a walk-in refrigerator. The darkness will provide cover for the narrator to perform presumably more vicious, more terrifying acts on the victim. However if the narrator wanted to terrorize the victim it would make more sense to leave the lights on so that the images they create during the rape or murder are that much more vivid, further compromising to the victim's long-term mental health. Perhaps the narrator demands the lights off because they are mimicking the stereotypical ritualization of romance between sexual partners. Maybe because the narrator has never experienced a genuine sexual encounter typical of most consensual teenagers and adults, they are going out of their way to complete a possible check-list of stereotypes and generalities to portray themselves as being proficient or experienced. "Smiling from ear to ear" An unrealistic, cliched expression describing someone who is exceptionally happy. He's most likely describing his own expression given how much he's committed to accosting the victim, but it's possible he's trying to also seeing what he wants to see and is imagining the victim is smiling with him. Perhaps since his perception of romance is so violent and delusional he thinks that the victim is actually turned on by his frightening and erratic behavior. "Our breathing has got too loud" The narrator telling or perhaps warning the victim that they're being too loud, just by breathing. The idea that the act of breathing is "too loud" is so unreasonable that it's not longer conjecture at this point to say that the narrator is overreacting, almost certainly to maintain control. It also begs the question as to who they think would be listening and why being "too loud" would have any consequences. Is it too loud for the "bad" part of the narrator and that as a result of being too loud the "bad" part of the narrator will do something violent? Are there other people involved with this situation or people who knew beforehand what the narrator was doing? Is he acting alone? This may help to reinforce the possibility that the narrator is schizophrenic or is dealing with multiple realities of himself, and not handling it well. "Show me the bedroom floor" Again, the narrator commands the victim to take him into some of the most intimate areas of where she presumably lives. He commands her to reinforce his dominance over her and goes to these areas because he knows that his presence in them will help reinforce a level of terror. If she lives through this incident she will never be able to feel comfortable, much less safe in these areas ever again. "Show me the bathroom mirror" The mirror is a slightly more interesting detail than what we've been presented with thus far. He's demanding that she "show him" the bathroom mirror which means they would both be standing in front of it, looking at each other's reflections. This suggests that he is staging an idyllic self-portrait which he likely perceives as being romantic. He wants them both to see how great they look together possibly in an attempt to convince her that he is altruistic in his intentions. Maybe his motivation is also perverse in wanting to physically visualize her form and figure next to his so that he may continue to improve the images in his head by adding details from her image in the mirror. "We're taking this way too slow" The narrator intimates that things are not happening within the time he wants. It's likely he's saying or thinking this with an exasperated or possibly angry tone. The statement provides no details as to when he expected things to be executed so the victim is helpless in terms of giving him what he wants. How is she supposed to know? And then of course we're left to imagine what exactly is taking so long. Given the excessive attention to intimacy thus far, and the constant show of power over the victim, it's likely that he's describing a rape. More specifically he may be talking about the amount of time it is taking him to ejaculate, presumably inside her. One alternate view of this same situation is he could be complaining about the length of time it is taking him to achieve an erection, in which case this would explain some of the insecurities the narrator is showing throughout the song, but hardly excuses any of them. "Take me away from here" The narrator demands to leave, whether it's the physical room or it's the situation itself. That his will to exit a situation comes so suddenly is only strange until you consider how erratic and unpredictable his behavior has been up to this point. It makes sense that he wants to leave so suddenly because it both reinforces his dominance over her by continuing to force activities to be done in his own time, and it also reflects a desperate vulnerability which he hastens to avoid. It's possible he might also be calling to reference the proclamation by Romeo in Act 5 of Romeo And Juliet when he exclaims "Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide" before he takes the poison. Perhaps the narrator's demand acts as a proclamation as well that he will take his own life. "I'm feeling this" The narrator continues to repeat this line over and over as though he still has not convinced himself he is in the moment. At this point the phrase reads almost like self-inflicted torture, exclaiming to himself as a point of sad and miserable accusation. Perhaps it shows the narrator folding in on itself and extending it's terror to other parts of it within, not just on the victim. "This place was never the same again" The narrator begins to speak about the room or house or apartment (or walk-in refrigerator) from a second person future-past perspective. He's talking to himself (!) about how the place has changed as though he is looking back on it from the future all while the event is still in progress. This bizarre and confusing use of perspective suggests the narrator struggles a great deal with his perception of not just his self, but the world at large. It seems when traumatic events occur to him he can only deal with them by obscuring the way he remembers them in time. But perhaps the most interesting part about this line is that it's possible the narrator is admitting that he has a history with this place, that he's been there before. It might also help suggest that his relationship with the location is also tied to the relationship with the victim, in which case this piece of evidence might suggest the narrator is coming back to exact revenge or punishment. "After you came and went" Narrator explains to us that he was once there--literally, figuratively, in a relationship with the victim maybe--and then left for reasons unknown. "How can you say you meant anything different to anyone" The narrator becomes self-loathing and lectures himself by asking essentially "what makes you think you mean anything to anyone?" Since the narrator has been so focused on carrying out possibly violent action on the victim up to this point it's odd that he would turn that action on himself and put himself in the line of his own fire. It's also strange that his perspective of himself has changed. Throughout the song his actions have been selfish and self-gratifying, but his motivation has always appeared desperate and misguided in favor of the victim. He demands to be taken into the bedroom because he "loves all the things [she] does" but it's likely that love was not reciprocated. Does this line suggest that the narrator has finally confronted the rejection of the victim? Remember, this line helps tie back to the second line (first line sung) at the beginning where he hints at showing regret. Could this mean the narrator is capable of remorse or is this his way of acting like a remorseful person, much like a classic sociopathic personality would behave? "standing alone on the street with a cigarette on the first night we met" Narrator inserts the victim into his look into the past going all the way back to the "first night" they met. He describes her as being "alone" possibly because she literally was at the time, but also maybe to suggest that she somehow needed him more than he needed her (despite the fact that he just lamented to himself about how pathetic he thinks he is). "On the street" could maybe suggest she is a sex worker, which might make the line about his insecurities ("How can you say you meant anything different to anyone") stronger in that he would be bemoaning the fact that not only does he mean nothing to anyone--not his family, not his friends--but not even sex workers who he pays to care about him. This reinforces a hundred other things including his obsession with sex, abandonment, power-struggle, sexism, rape and so on and so on The detail about the "cigarette" helps to provide more insight into the victim, but remains a surface detail. Lots of difference types of people smoke cigarettes so for the narrator to romanticize this detail does nothing in the way of showing the victim any sort of respect in how she is represented. Reflecting back to the "first night" is a cliched romantic trope and helps to show how unaware and inexperienced the narrator is with real emotion. But this calls to question the motivation for reflecting on the past at all. Is he looking back to remember what went wrong? Is he going back just to play it back in his head, possibly for the millionth time? Is he doing it to learn and grow from what he remembers? Is he looking back to derive some pleasure from some specific event? If so, why choose the first night, the time logically he would have the hardest time to remember? If nothing else these lines confirm, finally, that the two have a past history and may help to explain his motivation for coming back for the victim. "Look to the past" We've already confirmed this but the narrator finally cops to looking back at the history with the victim. "And remember her smile" The narrator focuses on another specific image, though completely unspecific in regards to time which suggests he doesn't actually remember details about the victim which he has so overtly romanticized throughout the song. Maybe he doesn't remember but maybe he just never really cared. Again, going back to the inability to feel true emotion, maybe recalling something as benign as a smile is just another heavy-handed misuse of a cliche he has interpreted as being meaningful without ever considering the meaning. It's possible this feature of the victim made a significant impression on the narrator given that this is the second mention of this "smile," but as mentioned before this detail lacks any depth or explanation to be convinced of his true feelings. "And maybe tonight I can breathe for a while" Now it seems the narrator is back to speaking from the present 1st person perspective but is continuing to reflect on the past. This line establishes time of day which we didn't know anything about before, but it doesn't confirm how long he's been with the victim at this point. The line about being able to finally breathe is odd in that it should be coming from the victim as a sign of relief. Instead it's the narrator who is relieved, if only for a short time, by the memory of her smile. If the narrator is truly sociopathic and is using the memory of the victim's smile only because it's what he thinks people would remember, then his relief is just as inauthentic as his memories. Yet still he thinks he is the one who deserves solace thereby positing that they are somehow the victim and not the woman they have terrorized and tormented the entire song. His audacity at this point knows no bounds. "I'm not in the seat" The narrator uses automobile imagery to articulate that it's somehow not in control. This goes directly against everything the narrator has said and done to this point so it suggests that they are continuing to convince themselves that it's the victim. This is startling given how very much in control the narrator has conducted themselves this entire time. To say that they're "not in the seat" while they've been changing gears and flooring the accelerator--to extend the metaphor--is unquestionably disturbing. The extent of the narrator's control and exertion of power coupled with their unreasonable and unjustified self-perception is incredibly dangerous. "I think I'm falling asleep" The narrator is possibly continuing the automobile imagery as though it's "falling asleep" in the car, which in their mind specifically it's in the passenger seat. Maybe the narrator is falling asleep because it's bored by it's actions. If we consider the narrator a sociopath, perhaps it's boredom is a result from having terrorized many people, many times as a means to approach some form of true emotion. Maybe these vicious acts of violence now no longer satiates it's will to live and it's become disillusioned and depressed. Maybe it's just realized this during the night these events from this song occurred ("tonight") and has also decided in the same time that it's is bored and has no will to live. Maybe "falling asleep" means dying. Did the narrator just kill themselves? Did the victim finally get revenge and kill the narrator? "But then all that it means is" The narrator is about to tell us what it means that they're "falling asleep." "I'll always be dreaming of you" The narrator confirms for us that it will be "falling asleep" as a means to dream or fantasize about the victim. There are two directions for interpretation. One is if the narrator is speaking literally. Perhaps the narrator is literally falling asleep, possibly in the confines of its own house, possibly in the victim's house. But containing and controlling the victim was so important to the narrator leading up to this point, it doesn't seem likely that they would suddenly relinquish that power by allowing themselves the peace to go to sleep. Where is the victim at the time of "falling asleep"? Is it possible she is dead? The other interpretation is that the narrator is speaking figuratively and is continuing the "sleep" metaphor by using sleep to describe it's own death, much like Hamlet did. In this instance it's possible this entire ordeal was motivated to create a lasting image of the victim with which the narrator could die with. The impression made from this incident, be it rape, or murder or kidnapping, would be the "dream" he could always go back to recall and, more specifically, die with to view forever. It would come as no surprise that all of the torture and the terror carried out on the victim may have only been to assert the dominance of the narrator over the girl, |
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| Dashboard Confessional – The Secret's In The Telling Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I think you're on to something here and in fact I think it's quite literally describing the beginning of Bella and Edward's relationship. "The signal, it's subtle we pass just close enough to touch No Questions, no answers we know by now to say enough" This "signal" of course is when their eyes meet and instantly there's a connection with one another that they've never had before. It's such a deep connection that at first they don't even talk about what he is or who he is ("No questions, no answers") or vampirism in general because they're so invested in each other by the most incidental of glances that it doesn't even make sense to talk ("we know by now to say enough"). Not to mention Edward doesn't even want to talk to her at first because he fights his compulsion to get to know her so hard he's scared to go to school. "The secret that we keep" This is the most obvious reference since it can describe both the forbidden nature of their relationship in the context of the high school (new girl, older guy), and of Edward being a vampire living in a modern American society, amongst the very prey they feed on. "I won't sleep if you won't sleep" The most recognizable image to draw from would be in the movie version where Edward is shown hanging out in her room while she's asleep. The line is a literal depiction of Edward's inability to fall asleep but it also hints at how dedicated he is to her that he is finally wrestling with a consequence, albeit a minor one, of his immortality and the things that come with being a vampire (like not being able to sleep). "We are compelled to do what we must do we are compelled to do what we have been forbidden" This is a common teenagers-are-gonna-be-teenagers sentiment, but when applied to Edward and Bella, there are the added dimensions of Edward and Bella, being vampire and human respectively, being involved in a romantic relationship which human society would abhor, and which the Volturi would reject just as vehemently. And in that sense, the song, and consequently their relationship, there is an obvious parallel very much like Romeo and Juliet, as has been previously stated upthread. "Our act of defiance, we keep this secret in our blood" This line appears to be the easiest to refer to the Twilight series with since he mentions blood. But because the physical blood of Bella and the blood of Edward is so different, one almost has to think to the marriage in Breaking Dawn for it to make sense. Because only once they're married does "our blood" in the line take on the symbol of the blood being mixed in marriage. Though it's hardly a "secret" to anyone at that point, it could be that either they or the reader still feels that their love and even their marriage is a secret in a romantic, figurative sense. I could go on... |
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