Air...Air
Hit me in the face
I run faster
Faster into the air
(I say to myself)
What is happening to my skin?
Where is that protection that I needed?
Air can hurt you too
Air can hurt you too
Some people say not to worry about the air
Some people never had experience with...

Air...Air
It can break your heart
So remember when the weather gets rough
(You'll say to yourself)
What is happening to my skin?
Where is that protection that I needed?
Air can hurt you too
Air can hurt you too
Some people say not to worry about the air
Some people don't know shit about the...
Air...


Lyrics submitted by Chris_Gough

Air Lyrics as written by David Byrne

Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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Air song meanings
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13 Comments

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  • +4
    General Comment

    David Byrne said in an interview once that it's about somebody who's afraid of air , but he says it's not a song about pollution, it's about someone who thinks the air can hurt you almost as he described "It's about being afraid of being alive!"

    curbboyon July 02, 2007   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    Shloogorgh\'s right on. I hear this song as the concerns of a very worried terrified person. On a side note, when my cat was a kitten, the first time I took her outside I could notice her being frightened by the way a slight breeze blew over her, something I would not have otherwise noticed, but she was experiencing for the first time.

    SpooktheHerdon June 28, 2007   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    I read somewhere that it was about somebody who was afraid of going out of their home. So the air is actually the exterior. Can't remember where I read it, think it was an interview with Byrne.

    munchaussenon December 28, 2008   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    To me, the song is about people harming the environment and the air around us. With the holes in the ozone layer, the sun can come through and damage our skin. We as people tend to simply ignore these problems (Some people say not to worry about the air), and pretty soon we won't have the air we need anymore (Some people never had experience with air).

    speakingintongueson August 08, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    I don't really see it being about STDs. I mean . . . why say 'air' if you mean 'sex'? The song isn't constructed like a metaphor for sex, and there's nothing in it to suggest that it's talking about STDs from sex rather than something actually to do with air, such as what speakingintongues said.

    Meinoson September 26, 2006   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    I think this song is about when the negative experiences in your life make you feel fragile, to the point where "air can hurt you too"

    Shloogorghon May 31, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    As with a great majority of Talking Heads lyrics, David Byrne continually writes about the drug experience. These other explanations always hit upon more of the banal, his concepts are so much more ethereal than unprotected sex or pollution. At times, he does write about seemingly banal subject matters, but it's used as a tactic to pull us away from our programmed reactions and views, making us vulnerable to life as children are. This song specifically dwells on the experience of depersonalization in the drug experience, ego-death, transcending our corporal body, no longer having the safety blanket of being 'me'. No safety to fall back on, the personality, or role which we come to identify with our self. It is obliterated, and we become one with the air around us, fully a sensation, no longer an entity.

    js2016on October 01, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I don't really see it being about STDs. I mean . . . why say 'air' if you mean 'sex'? The song isn't constructed like a metaphor for sex, and there's nothing in it to suggest that it's talking about STDs from sex rather than something actually to do with air, such as what speakingintongues said.

    Meinoson September 26, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Tragically the song is absolutely right. Air can and does hurt you: oxygen is what makes you grow old!

    willttedon November 16, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    lol, leave it to the heads. sometimes their songs are just so unobviously obvious! stop making scence, and ya just might get it ;]

    senoritanachoon April 24, 2011   Link

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