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."
Inhumation - intermenting heaven's light
Altercated - activate the animus
Instigation - terrify the holy hearts
Mutilation - helpless christians ripped apart
Revocation
All christians are destroyed
Unguarded by the light
The Satanist rejoice
Revocate me!
Retribution - brought upon by god belief
Isolation - confrontate the enemy
World castration - exaltation anarchy
Revocation - Hell's reclusion to receive
Revocate the agitator
Revocate the agitator
Revocate the agitator
Revocate the agitator
Inhumation - intermenting heaven's light
Altercated - activate the animus
Instigation - terrify the holy hearts
Mutilation - helpless christians ripped apart
Revocate the agitator
Altercated - activate the animus
Instigation - terrify the holy hearts
Mutilation - helpless christians ripped apart
Revocation
All christians are destroyed
Unguarded by the light
The Satanist rejoice
Revocate me!
Retribution - brought upon by god belief
Isolation - confrontate the enemy
World castration - exaltation anarchy
Revocation - Hell's reclusion to receive
Revocate the agitator
Revocate the agitator
Revocate the agitator
Revocate the agitator
Inhumation - intermenting heaven's light
Altercated - activate the animus
Instigation - terrify the holy hearts
Mutilation - helpless christians ripped apart
Revocate the agitator
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