Suddenly Everything Has Changed

I think in general this song is pretty self-explanatory, but I noticed a couple people here have misinterpreted its overarching theme, so I'll just add my two cents here:

This song, like various other songs on the record, such as Feeling Yourself Disintegrate, is primarily about realizing you're getting older and getting nostalgic at intermittent moments, realizing how fast life has gone. It's about the fact that we often don't realize how much life has changed until we sit down and think about it. It's at the most banal moments within our lives that we realize how much has changed since our childhood, such as when we're doing the laundry. It's at these repetitious moments that we start to think more cosmically and in the context of our entire lives.

This year, I turned 18, and it was surreal to think that I had finally reached the age of majority--an age that, in my childhood, seemed so distant. It sunk in this year that I was getting older, that being an adult was actually possible, and that it wasn't much different from being a child. But as I thought back to the euphoric moments I had experienced during my childhood, I realized that many things actually had changed. Simply driving down the road could elicit such thoughts, realizing that even the sky seemed different as I had gotten older.

This entire album is amazing, because of how cosmically it views our lives and the world at large. This song is certainly one of its highlights.

Wayne Coyne is fucking hot. I don't care how old he is

only hear the postal service cover of this song, and i like it a LOT!

mmm, I think it could mean: How your whole life changes when someone really close to you dies, but then again how quickly time moves on and you go back to the regular habits of daily life and you don't realize this until you stop and think back on how things used to be.

This is one of my favorite songs by this band. I really connect to it. It's just my take on it but I think it's about your mind wandering during the most boring or random of moments. It reminds me of my own life. I am part-time housewife/part-time mural artist...so I have alot of alone time and I like that but I find that I live in my own head alot. Frequently, when I am alone,usually doing mundane chores...especially these quieter chores such as laundry or driving in the car to run errands with music playing (that's my favorite place to really enjoy experiencing music)...my mind will drift to something random or a memory from the past. Or I find myself daydreaming...and often it makes me feel nostalgic, melencholy or even thinking on a very deep level about life and death. When things are hectic and so busy...you don't have time to slow down and think like that... but in those moments when you do slow down on some simple physical task and your mind is free to think...those type of thoughts tend to sneak up on you and catch you off guard and it can sometimes even rattle you a bit. But that's just my take on it. I really love this song...

this song is about the sudden onset of a panic attack. one of the hallmark features of a panic attack is the feeling of impending doom or death. This fits with Wayne's own interpretation (Death Anxiety Caused By Moments Of Boredom).

Panic attacks can occur at any moment...usually during the most mundane of activities. Interestingly the 2nd verse involving the sky accelerating the clouds forming geometric shapes has the hallmarks of an acid flashback. LSD can mimic the symptoms of panic disorder, and can certainly cause "death anxiety". I believe Wayne is alluding to that here in this song.

Nevertheless it is an amazing song and probably my favorite on the album.

I agree with colloquyon and would like to add a few of my own thoughts. Nostalgia is the strongest theme of this song for sure, however it also reminds me of how time tends to play tricks on our minds when our lives continue to move forward but our minds are numb. Sometimes we think in slow-motion, especially when grieving and find it difficult to exist emotionally and physically in the world around us. Many might just call this depression. It's when we go through the motions, but stay locked inside our heads while everything around us continues to move at the pace of life. Then suddenly, we stop feeling the pain and wake up and look around and notice that life has moved forward and things have changed, and it's time to let go...

I think the meaning is clearly described in the subtitle, but I always saw it as something kind of opposite of that until I read that. It reminded me of when something awful happens, like the death of a loved one, or a particularly traumatic break-up. Just as you are moving on and getting back to the status quo - a la mundane tasks - all of a sudden the full weight of what happened ca hit you like a freight train. Then you find yourself reliving that terrible experience in your mind all over again. Suddenly you feel the entire weight of what happened. You go through it, get back on your feet, and then the cycle starts over again. But either way, it's the enormity of a life-change hitting you as soon as you let your guard down.

The song's meaning is obvious so...A fucking great song, man...

on the CD insert, there's something like, "this song explores the idea of dying from boredom." actually im sure that's not what it says, but it's something to that effect.