This song is def a twin to "Unfair" (a song she has been quoted as saying is about falling in love with someone who is already in a relationship) so it is presumably about the same person. Given the references to buying an apartment and not being able to see her love interest "after tonight," it's most likely that she's moving away and she'll "wait a day to break the bad news" (i.e. notifying him that she's leaving once she's already gone).
And, of course, the fact that she sees in him a fellow "idealist" and "dreamer" (terms commonly given to people with the INFP personality on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)) portends that she'll always be left wondering if they would've been perfect together.
come and rescue me
in the water deep
careful now don't lose your aim
the road ahead is clear again
I haven't found it yet
you drift away so slow
in the ebb and flow
so I landed on my feet
the steadiness is bittersweet
it feels the same when you're pushed
out and away and into the crush
in all the hidden pleasures you find
in what you're looking for
I hope that you remember that pride
comes before a fall
I can barely see up and down and back again
despite what you believe
I keep away from trouble
if who I am today's a sign of where I'm going
I'm ready to embrace
recreate the scene
of everywhere you've been
overcome the dreaded curse
a symptom of the universe
it feels the same when you're pushed
out and away and into the crush
in all the hidden pleasures you find
in what you're looking for
I hope that you rembember that pride
comes before a fall
I can barely see up and down and back again
despite what you believe
I keep away from trouble
if who I am today's a sign of where I'm going
I'm ready to embrace
if everybody knows just who you are
when your walk on role becomes a major part
have you ever attempted to be yourself
when everybody wants you to be someone else
if you want to see the things you've trapped set free
you better let go of what lets them be
have you ever attempted to be yourself
when everybody wants you to be someone else
up and down and back again
going up and down and back again
in the water deep
careful now don't lose your aim
the road ahead is clear again
I haven't found it yet
you drift away so slow
in the ebb and flow
so I landed on my feet
the steadiness is bittersweet
it feels the same when you're pushed
out and away and into the crush
in all the hidden pleasures you find
in what you're looking for
I hope that you remember that pride
comes before a fall
I can barely see up and down and back again
despite what you believe
I keep away from trouble
if who I am today's a sign of where I'm going
I'm ready to embrace
recreate the scene
of everywhere you've been
overcome the dreaded curse
a symptom of the universe
it feels the same when you're pushed
out and away and into the crush
in all the hidden pleasures you find
in what you're looking for
I hope that you rembember that pride
comes before a fall
I can barely see up and down and back again
despite what you believe
I keep away from trouble
if who I am today's a sign of where I'm going
I'm ready to embrace
if everybody knows just who you are
when your walk on role becomes a major part
have you ever attempted to be yourself
when everybody wants you to be someone else
if you want to see the things you've trapped set free
you better let go of what lets them be
have you ever attempted to be yourself
when everybody wants you to be someone else
up and down and back again
going up and down and back again
Lyrics submitted by dsfire
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The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
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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.
Fast Car
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"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
The Night We Met
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
A song about getting lost in conformity?
It's about losing someone you love slowly, and having to come to terms with it. The feeling of being lost "in the water deep" is helplessness.
this song reminds me so much of mirrorball-era neil young. you know, the album he did with pearl jam.
It means they are closet Black Sabbath fans...
songmeanings.net/lyric.php
It's about being lost in an overwhelming world. And being tossed around again and again, on the sea of people and places and events, which seem to dictate who you are, and the constant pressures (of the metaphorical sea) which become almost commonplace to the person in the choppy sea, so that when steadiness is found, it's almost distasteful in that it is a change from what the person is used to. Of certainty making things uncertain, and of being unable to see for all the problems and issues you have, of looking at yourself, and feeling you might be moving ahead in a way you don't quite understand, but are willing to accept.
Becoming famous and well-known. "When your walk on role becomes a major part". Changing into a celebrity and forgetting who you really are, and becoming what society wants you to be. "Pride comes before a fall".