Kiss From A Rose

No one has posted a comment in a while, but THIS IS TRUE MUSIC! People need to listen to more of Seal; this is what makes music music. I always listened to pop and rock and stuff like that, but once I heard Seal I knew he had the musical talent, without all of the autotuning. This music NEEDS TO BE PLAYED ON THE RADIO; the newer music gets played every day, the same thing, all the time for like 2 years. If this music was being played on the radio, it would not get boring, because it is truely amazing and definately can touch your heart, make you excited, etc. THIS MUSIC WILL NEVER DIE, it is too amazing. His work leaves me speechless.

Ok meant to post this not reply, my bad

Here is what I think the song means:

There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea:

• A tower usually refers to a strong man, in other words he was happily in love.
• Greying means that it is losing colour, the woman he loved died.
• So it refers to a man that has lost the woman he loved and is getting more and more depressed.
• A tower on the sea means that he is looking out over the pool of women, just like the expression: there are more fish in the sea. You became the light on the dark side of me:
• He meets a new woman that brings happiness even though he is still depressed over the loss of his previous love. Love remains a drug that's the high and not the pill:
• He falls completely in love with this new woman and it makes him so happy no drug can compare. But did you know that when it snows:
• Roses usually don’t bloom in the winter, that is when it snows.
• This means the woman is away. My eyes become large:
• No matter how much he looks for it. And the light that you shine can't be seen?
• He can’t see her light.
• He can’t feel happy when she isn’t near him.

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey:

• A rose may symbolise many things, but here it symbolises colour, which in turn represents happiness, while the grey represents sadness.
• Because of the new woman’s love the man can feel happy again despite his loss. Ooo, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah:
• The strange feeling is because he still has loyalty to his old love, but it doesn’t seem to hold him back. Now that your rose is in bloom:
• Because now that he has found this new woman A light hits the gloom on the grey
• the loss of his first love doesn’t hurt so much.

There is so much a man can tell you So much he can say

• Other people may criticize his new relation You remain my power, my pleasure, my pain
• But it doesn’t matter. Baby, to me, you're like a growing Addiction that I can't deny
• He keeps falling more and more in love with her Won't you tell me, is that healthy, baby?
• So much he is completely lovesick.

And if I should fall, will it all go away?

• This may either mean that he doesn’t want to screw up his new relationship as she is everything to him now. It may also mean he is concerned that if he would die now the woman would become sad and lose her colour just like he did before her.

That's what I think.

I really don't like the relation to drugs. Even though it seems plausible I feel it ruins the beauty of this song.

Thorns are never mentioned in the song, so I strongly believe the rose represents colour and happiness.

Before reading the lyrics I too always thought he sang grave, but grey makes a lot more sense, especially since the songs starts with "a greying tower". But even if grey is replaced by grave it still holds the same meaning.

I always thought it was; "a kiss on the grave"-shows how well I can hear apparently... :| Lovely song. :) It was the best part of that Batman installment.

this song is about a guy who is a loner and never had any real emotions, who falls in love with a beautiful girl who he believes will light his dark and lonely life up "light on the dark side of me". he then does everything in his power to get her to fall in love with him but as she realizes he loves her, he pays the ultimate sacrifice, thus love is like a rose, beautiful but can bear its thorns and become painful.

I think it means that you love someone eternally beautiful, like a rose, but their thorns are causing you pain at the same time. It is definately not about heroin or something. That line "and love became a drug that's the high and not the pill" means that love is giving you a "high" that no pill could ever give you.

I thought the lyrics were " kiss from a rose on the GRAVE." interesting..

i think this song means this person is very much in love with someone and they are the most beutiful thing in their life, maybe the only beutiful thing in their life cause the song says "rose on the grey". They brighten up their dull and ugly life.

I also thought it was "grave".

I think that "a kiss from a rose" is like kissing something so beautiful but its painful at the same time...like Somebody you love so much but they cause you pain.

“No we’re never gonna survive unless… We are a little… [Rilke]”

The following has been given his Seal of approval: A prick from a rose thorn, Sealed with a “kiss from a rose”. Poetic allusions in Seal’s "Kiss from a rose": An existential exegesis

“Kiss from a rose” alludes to a prick from a rose thorn suffered by Rainer Maria Rilke which he received whilst in his rose garden; from which he thought he had contracted the infection that ultimately killed him (instead of leukaemia, which he had been diagnosed with).

The rose’s thorn could symbolise: the pain of life; or the painful pointed prick of life as you die; or the pain of death, before you are extinguished, vanished, gone.

Hence, “a kiss from a rose on the grey” [my italics], is not literally referring to “a rose on a grey”, but just alluding to the grey colour of the tombstone, to emphasise the causal link betwixt roses and his untimely interment.

The rose symbolises death, so the kiss from the rose is the kiss of death, which eliminates the greyness of life, replacing it with the bright light of death.

The “light” is death, which “hits the gloom” of life, Like the sharp thorn that pierced Rilke’s fleisch.

Flowers “in bloom” on Rilke’s grave now grow; But did I see roses there? Alas, no.

Rilke’s epitaph, as laid out on his tombstone (with capitalisation still intact, as in the original, and my translation) reads thus:

                         ROSE, OH REINER WIEDERSPRUCH,
                                                            LUST,
                         NIEMANDES SCHLAF ZU SEIN
                                                  UNTER SOVIEL
                          LIDERN.

                        ROSE, OH RAGING VARIANCE, 
                                                       LUST,
                        NOBODY’S SLEEP TO BE 
                                        UNDER SO MANY
                         LIDS.