For You

This song is so GREAT! It's just about how like this guy likes to keep to himself but he also wants to love this girl but doesn't know if he can. I love BNL's stuff. They're are amazing!

i like this song...i didnt at first but it grows on u i can sing it off by heart and its really sweet how he doesnt think hes good enough ('I will give you all I could ever give Though it's less than you will need')

I don't think it's that he doesn't think he's good enough, exactly. I think he can't open himself up enough to really be participating fully in the relationship.

In fact, it's not just the relationship: I think "If I hide myself wherever I go, am I ever really there?" means that he's missing out on his whole life, never really being part of anything, because he's too scared to open up to people.

You know I think you are both right to a degree. What I see this song as meaning is this guy loves this girl but he can't open up to her enough, can't love her as much as she deserves because he sees her as so amazing.(I will give you all I could ever give Though it's less than you will need) He is just so scared of it all, he is looking at an wondering if there is something wrong with him or is he just being stupid.(An enigma wrapped in a mystery Or a fool consumed by fear?)

Later he realizes she likes him and she knows he likes her and he still can't say it. He tries to come up with things and reasons so he doesn't have to care but they all are absurd and stupid(And for every useless reason I know There's a reason not to care) so he finally asks her if she can ever forgive him for not being able to open up to her.(Could you just forget if you can't forgive All the things I cannot concede?)

Then he asks himself if I can't say it to her, do I really love her?(If I hide myself wherever I go Am I ever really there?)

I love this song, but unfortunately it hits WAY too close to home. I think it's right that he can't open up because of fear, and that he's so afraid he can't show up for his own life: "There is nowhere else I would rather be, but I can't just be right here." I don't really think that the problem is that he thinks she's too good...he's just afraid of any kind of intimacy and real feeling. He asks her to get past it, because he doesn't think he can change, but I don't think he really thinks she'll be able to get past it.

If there was one song I thought applied most to me, it'd be this one. I'm constrained by my own morals and self-doubt, and I think that this song applies so strongly to that.

This is my very favorite song from Everything to Everyone. It's about wanting to give all of yourself, but never being able to give that one last bit and wondering if you're ever "really there" because of that.

"In a book, in a box, high up on a shelf; in a locked and guarded vault. Are the things that I keep only for myself. It's your fate, but it's not your fault."

"I will give you all I could ever give, though it's less than you will need."

hey colum1225, what do you mean by "hits WAY to close to home?" If you're saying that the song is a repeat of the concept of the song "Home", then you're incorrect. This song came three years before Home.

This song makes me cry. Ed needs to stop doing that to me... I wonder what the intended meaning is...

It took me a few times of listening to realize this, but this song; as well as many of the Barenaked Ladies songs (that I've heard), is about drugs.

The singer is in love, but he doesn't feel like he deserves his girlfriend's love because he's helplessly addicted to some kind of drug. He feels guilty for hiding it from her ("in a book, in a box high upon a shelf in a locked and guarded vault"), and for the fact that he's wasting so much money he can't support them if they get married ("it's (poverty) your fate but it's not your fault"/"I would give you all I could ever give though it's less than you will need.")

But I could be wrong, since the REAL meaning is what YOU (the listener) think of it.