Per the FAQ on Keane's website, Keane's drummer Richard Hughes, stated the following:
"We've been asked whether "Somewhere Only We Know" is about a specific place, and Tim has been saying that, for him, or us as individuals, it might be about a geographical space, or a feeling; it can mean something individual to each person, and they can interpret it to a memory of theirs... It's perhaps more of a theme rather than a specific message... Feelings that may be universal, without necessarily being totally specific to us, or a place, or a time..."
With the nostalgic sentiment and the overall tone of the song, I think Keane is attempting to express a Portuguese term known as 'saudade', which does not have a direct English translation but roughly means "that which we remember because it is gone."
Know me broken by my master
Teach thee on child love hereafter
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Drifting body it's sole desertion
Flying not yet quite the notion
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Am I wrong
Have I run too far to get home
Have I gone
Left you here alone
Am I wrong
Have I run too far to get home yeah
Have I gone
Left you here alone
If I would, could you
Teach thee on child love hereafter
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Drifting body it's sole desertion
Flying not yet quite the notion
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Am I wrong
Have I run too far to get home
Have I gone
Left you here alone
Am I wrong
Have I run too far to get home yeah
Have I gone
Left you here alone
If I would, could you
Lyrics submitted by Ice, edited by staycool72
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So, as I learned, Jerry wrote the song for the late Mother Love Bone Singer Andy Wood.
Not as romantic maybe, but makes a lot more sense to me. I feel they were warning those who might have judged Andy Wood for relapsing again after rehab & asking people to get honest with themselves--if he would do it...could you? And unfortunately, as someone in recovery, my answer is OF COURSE I could (and probably would have).