First It Giveth

This song is most defenantly about a drug addiction.

"I'm in you You're in me I can't tell"

• He's talking about how its hazy, after a while of using some particular drugs, whether your taking the drug or if the drug is taking you.

"First it giveth, then it taketh away"

• this is like when you first start taking certain drugs it entertains and makes you feel good, but after a while of taking the drugs you start to go down in a hole. Your 'good times' become an addiction. "I would beg I would plead I would shake"

This song is easy to understand for some people who have experienced a drug addiction. Thats why some people think its about love with a girl. but its for sure a love/hate song about drugs.

Brazilian, it's an archaic version that was often used in the King James Version of the Bible.

Homme is referring to Job chapter 1, verse 21:

[Job] said, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

The verse is about submission. So is this song. Probably submission to a drug addiction.

i think somehow this is about a relationship. And one of the persons in this relationship lives in dependence to the other (i know. No good english.) I think it's about a youn man who is in sexual dependence to an other person (for example "I'm so young) and then "I would beg" and so on.

yeah i really really like this song

well even though uncletommy dude said what it was im still gonna tell you what i thought it was about, i was watching discovery channel and there was this thing about asteroids hitting the earth and bringing life here then later on another asteroid hits and destoys all life thuse the asteroid first it give then it take away.. see where im coming come? and the lyrics sound like the metaphor for this and how you would feel during the time of chrisis of the asteroid hurtiling towards earth and relising it all, yeah thats it =)

Its great...I always thought it was about a relationship or sex but it could also be about drugs I guess...but I loved the asteroid idea....and that is what is so great about QOTSA....there songs can mean anything to ANYONE!!!!

I like to think this song is about life in general. Life gives you everything, but at the end it takes it all away. So the whole lyrics are a remark about living and knowing that "time goes by, tables turn" until life claims back all that was given to us. Not necessarily in a negative way, I think it's more like "I acknowledge that"

It's about drugs. Homme: "Well I think we have a song that about this subject called First they Giveth, then They Taketh away, and I think at first you can draw inspiration and then eventually, it negates any inspiration. " ( http://hobbs1767.tripod.com/transcripts/0208xxjosh.html )

Alot of QOTSA songs are based around drugs, relationships and sex. Most bands generally tend to sing about some topics consistantly, and that's pretty much what these guys tend to sing about. In MY own opinion, whether right or not, I hear all their songs about relationships, drugs and sex, and tend to think they are all metaphorical to eachother. So when I sum up QOTSA in a whole, I believe they consider sex, drugs and relationships in one catagory: Addiction.

Just listening to it for the past several years I thought it was about sex, for some reason, I'd never looked up the lyrics online until now, but yeah, after reading:

"Loyal to Only you Up your sleeve"

and shortly after that:

"I would beg I would plead I would shake"

DRUGS!!! (For those of you who don't get the 2+2 juxtaposition above, the first quote is talking about shooting heroin, "up your sleeve," since your arm is the most readily available vein and easiest to get to by yourself. The second is about the withdrawal symptoms, aside from being irritable without it, ["I would beg, I would plead"] it talks about the physical symptoms, like tremors. ["I would shake"])