| Mumford & Sons – I Gave You All Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I felt compelled to write this because nobody else’s interpretations quite matched my own and I was curious to see if anyone else felt the way that I did about this song. The first time that I saw the lyrics they didn’t move me as much as other Mumford songs but as time passed I began to see much more meaning in them. I believe that this song takes place in the head of a man whose girlfriend has recently dumped him. They are meeting to talk about the breakup after some time has passed. The girl has done some shady things since they broke up which pains and frustrates him since he was not the one who even wanted the breakup in the first place. This is just my opinion on this song so no hate please. Rip the earth in two with your mind Seal the urge which ensues with brass wires His girlfriend had the idea to break up with him and essentially tear apart his world, and for a while she was “sealing the urge with brass wires,” essentially living in a relationship she didn’t want to be in and holding back the urge to break up with him that she’s had since she decided to “rip the earth in two.” I never meant you any harm But your tears feel warm as they fall on my forearm In this verse the narrator is clearly frustrated with his girlfriend because he didn’t mean her any harm, it was not him who chose to go down this path, it was his girlfriend and now she’s crying to him about it. But close my eyes for a while Force from the world a patient smile The only way he feels like he can deal with this is to close his eyes and ask the world to let him listen patiently when he is so frustrated and doesn’t want to hear her out. She was the one who decided this relationship was going to be over and now he has to sit here and listen to how upset it is making her. How can you say that your truth is better than ours? The narrator is once again feeling frustrated because by breaking up with him, his girlfriend is living her “truth” that the narrator believes is different from how their relationship happened. She has one version of events in her head that led her to the decision to break up with him but it’s not what actually happened in their relationship according to him. Shoulder to shoulder, now brother, we carry no arms Now that they’re talking they have no more weapons to come at each other. The breakup, i.e. the worst of it, has already happened and the playing field has leveled as time has passed. At the beginning the narrator was devastated emotionally by the breakup and by her trying to get back at him by hurting him and trying to “win.” At this point in time the girlfriend who broke up with him has realized that she made a mistake and was emotionally devastated by it herself, which is probably why she tried to hurt him in the first place. They are now leveled, brothers even, and they have nothing left to hurt each other because they have exhausted their options. The blind man sleeps in the doorway, his home This line, I am having so much trouble with. Sleeping in the doorway is something that I associate with being drunk and out of sorts. In this way I relate this line to meaning that the girlfriend is the blind man who is blind to everyone else’s emotions. Because the blind man is so constantly blind to everyone else’s emotions he is always going out and getting drunk to try to deal with his own and thus always ends up in the doorway passed out. (I really don’t know what to make of this line, this is a loose interpretation.) If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won In this line he is saying that his apathy was his biggest enemy. After the breakup he stopped caring because it hurt too much. He didn’t want to bother with revenge because he knew if he did it would leave him in so much pain. If there was an enemy bigger than his apathy, such as anger, he would have retaliated and he could’ve “won.” But I gave you all The way he exclaims this makes me think that he was listening to her go on and on and he was starting to feel sorry for her but then he was like hold up, I gave you everything and you repaid me by breaking my heart. Close my eyes for a while Force from the world a patient smile Once again, as he continues thinking about how upset he was and how much she hurt him he just tries to take time to calm himself and pull himself together. He fakes a patient smile to appease her but he has no interest in what she has to say. But I gave you all But you rip it from my hands And you swear it's all gone And you rip out all I have Just to say that you've won In this verse I believe that “it” is referring to his love for her. By breaking up with him she ripped the love that he had for her out of him and then “swore it was all gone.” She herself made him fall out of love with her and now is using the fact that he doesn’t love her anymore against him. She feels guilty that they broke up because now she regrets it and feels it was the wrong decision so she just keeps doing things to try to provoke him and anger him so he’ll try to retaliate. If he does in fact retaliate negatively she can say that she won because now her reasons for breaking up with him are valid. Well now you've won She’s won now. He’s over it and doesn’t love her anymore. |
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