A Perfect Sonnet

I personally think this song is about someone who really wants to fall in love but has been unsucessful. So he wants something else that's more attainable that he can control that will make him forget about wanting to fall in love. I think he bitterness and jealousy to people in love is he talkes about tying them together and throwing them in the ocean and then talks about chaining them together and throwing them into the fire left to burn in there arrogance. I think he feels like a outsider looking in. Feels like he's running out time.

"I believe that lovers should be tied together And thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather And left there to drown Left there to drown in their innocence"

In Revolutionary France, a popular method of execution was tying a husband and wife together naked and then casting them into a river to drown.

very interesting that he draws on this.

to me, this song is about all of those who got away because i was too afraid to do anything, because i was too messed up in the head and depressed, because i had such a low self esteem. it reminds me of the time where i despised others who were in relationships and i couldn't understand why i couldn't join them. this song screams of all those years i was indulged in self-pity, depression, and pain.

I think he's tired of meaningless relationships and he's envious of lovers that last the tests of time. Cupid's arrows have had short lasting side-effects for him. Maybe he just longs for someone worth more than just one nice night, but instead a smattering of goodnights and good-byes leading to later hellos.

Since relationships have thunder; they're stormy, they're made of both joy and sadness, people give up. But he doesn't want to. And yet he does. It's simple to just skimper in the sunlight, keep things light because people's storms make people weary to wander -weary to love. So if you find desire, cling to it. Stay with it through the "worst of weather." -after the storm comes the calm. and in the end

True lovers should be draped in flowers. For they've made it through the tests of times.

i love this song so much. it makes me cry every time i listen to it... i love the "i believe that lovers should be..."

i felt this way during one of my nervous breakdowns

It's interesting that most people interpret these lyrics in a primarily romantic light, because I've always seen it as outlining the typical, torturous existential crisis: the speaker is struggling to accept the shortness of life and the eventual meaninglessness of it all. He's grasping onto the significance with dear life; that's the tremble in this man's voice. But the dynamic doesn't end there; it's rather ambivalent. Actual music-wise, the fluctuation in tempo and intensity really hint at Conor's quixotic attitude and frustration at the time of writing. He goes from "[watching] it all dissolve into a single second" and feeling quite dire to preaching to others that "[people are] here and then [they are] gone," as if he came to the conclusion without struggle. The cynicism is at its peak in the refraining periods; that's where all the bitter "I believe that..." lines are.

My favorite has always been:

"But as for me, I'm coming to the final chapter I read all of the pages and there's still no answer Only all that was before I know must soon come after That's the only way it can be."

The "final chapter" is in the book of wisdom and ultimate truth. The writer is complaining that he's been through all he can go through, "and there's still no answer," meaning an answer does not exist. The next lines, I think, allude to the life cycle of humans. The average person in the United States, by their time of death, may very well learn to walk twice, learn how to speak again or simply how to manage wearing diapers. So, no matter how many great things may occur in life, it all just amounts to, first, a "a single second" once we are soon to die, and now "a mirror" - everything that happens is only a reflection of one's self. We reap what we sow, and the speaker is frustrated because instead of spending time actually improving his life he sits around whining about the nature of the world: "...I still ended up becoming something other than what I planned to be."

Ultimately, some of the best, painfully infectious Bright Eyes lyrics ever. Some equivalents would be Lua, You! Will. and Bowl of Oranges.

This is how I'd write the lyrics; I daresay it can be arranged better than in the original post.

Lately I've been wishing I had one desire
Something that would make me never want another
Something that would make it so that nothing mattered
All would be clear then

But I guess I'll have to settle for a few brief moments
And watch it all dissolve into a single second
Try to write it down into a perfect sonnet
Or one foolish line

'Cause that's all that you'll get
So you'll have to accept
You are here, then you're gone

But I believe that lovers should be tied together
Thrown into the ocean in the worst of weather
Left there to drown, left there to drown in their innocence

But as for me, I'm coming to the final chapter
I read all of the pages and there's still no answer
The only words before I know must soon come after
That's the only way it can be

So I stand in the sun, and I breathe with my lungs
I'm trying to spare me the weight of the truth

Saying everything you've ever seen was just a mirror
Spend your whole life sweating in an endless fever
And laying in a bathtub full of freezing water
Wishing you were a ghost

But once you knew a girl and you named her lover
Danced with her in kitchens through the greenest summer
Autumn came, she disappeared, you can't remember
Where she said she was going to

But you know that she's gone
'Cause she left you a song
That you don't want to sing

Singing I believe that lovers should be chained together
Thrown into a fire with their songs and letters
Left there to burn, left there to burn in their arrogance

But as for me, I'm coming to my final failure
Killed myself with changes trying to make things better
Ended up becoming something other than what I had planned to be
Alright!

I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers
And laid entwined together on a bed of clover
Left there to sleep
Left there to dream of their happiness

i feel this way exactlly a good portion of my life. Then conor just keeps bringing himself back.

i wonder who he wrote this about, or what inspired him to create this song? the pain in his voice... it makes me want to cry but the ending prevents me. its beautiful, for lack of a better word.