In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
I'm surrounded, each doorway covered by at least twenty men. And they're going to take me and throw me in prison. I ain't coming back again. When I was younger, handsomer and stronger, I felt like I could do anything. But all of these people making all these faces didn't seem like my kith and kin. Colin Kincaid from the twelfth grade, I guess you could say he was my best friend. He lived in a big tall house out on Westfall where we would hide when the rain rolled in. We went out one night and took a flashlight, out with these two girls Colin knew from Kenwood Christian. One was named Laurie, that's what the story said next week in the Guardian. And when I killed her it was so easy that I wanted to kill her again. I got down on both of my knees and….she ain't coming back again. Now, with all these cameras focused on my face, you'd think they could see it through my skin. They're looking for evil, thinking they can trace it, but evil don't look like anything.
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Standing On The Edge Of Summer
Thursday
Thursday
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
I think it is taking it all a bit too literally to say that it is specifically about that incident. It's about murder in general and about how as Will Sheff said "I remember my co-workers looking at him and looking at him for the evil on his face. You wanted to see the evil, but it wasn't there." It obviously wasn't about any particular murder, just about those murders that seem completely senseless but are performed by seemingly normal people.
I've only just learnt about this band and this song is a particular favourite of mine. I wanted to play it on my radio show but there has been a serial killer on the loose and I don't think I could get away with playing it so soon after they caught the supposed perputrator. This is a similar situation really and the weirdest thing is that it's happened in my town (Ipswich in England) where that sort of thing isn't heard of. It's been weird.
I came to SongMeanings to figure out the exact words to this line:
"But all of these people making all these faces didn’t seem like my kith and kin."
Makes me think of Meursault from Camus' "The Stranger." That, along with Laurie's murder.
This song reminds me of a Dutch/French film "Spoorloos (The Vanishing)." The antagonist of the film rescues a young girl from drowning and is praised as a hero. To determine whether he was actually as good as everyone seemed to believe he was, he decided to perform the most evil act he could think of to balance out the good deed. So he kidnaps a woman and buries her alive. I guess the parallel between the film and the song then would be the theme that nobody is inherently good or evil, that the people who seem and are capable of the greatest acts are just as capable of the most wicked acts.
Country music was made for singing about murder, and this song is about how we just want to condemn people who do bad things without bothering to think about what may have caused them to do those things.
Or maybe it's just that you never can tell who the bad apple is going to be, take your pick.
I think the idea behind this song is that even oo or normal people are capable of doing really bad things. Because he's not asking for us to feel sorry for him (like he does in "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks," but he just makes himself sound like a normal guy (who happened to kill a girl he didn't know).
I agree with the above statements, although I would object to classifying OR as country. If you ever get a chance to see OR live, do it. Their version of "Westfall" is sped up and rocked out. At the show I attended a mini mosh pit even formed. Try to picture that.
i think its about a guy who killed for no reason at all...just to do it. thats just how things are...you do things to do it...and this guy just happened to do a very bad thing. i love how the song speeds up at the end...its beautiful. 'she ain't comin' back again' i totally love the "lalalalalala" stuff...i never know where to place my "la la's" in my songs...inspiring.
"There were these murder cases in Austin where these two girls were working in a yogart shop and these three college guys went to rob the place and killed and mutilated them. I worked for the state at the time and heard the details they didn't report -- how they cut them open and filled them with frozen yogart. They caught one of the kids that did it, and there he was, on TV, and I remember my co-workers looking at him and looking at him for the evil on his face. You wanted to see the evil, but it wasn't there." - Will Sheff
austin.about.com/od/cityservices/p/springsteenr.htm
this is the link to the details of the murder. interestingly, there is no colin kinkaid affiliated with the murders.
absolutely perfect song about a horribly tragic event.
This song is so haunting, but its so great.