Your Legs Grow

I was at one of their shows too, and he explained it like this:

It's kind of like when you're in too deep in something, and you thing you're gunna drown, and then all of a sudden your legs grow, and it gets you out of the mess you are in.

Once you get the meaning, the song is so touching and means so much more. Everyone can identify with it.

This is what i got out of the song. It's about love. Someone's love for someone else. Either telling them they want them to feel ok, or want to be there for them. Giving them guidance, telling them that their "legs will grow". The line "call me anytime you've got a ghost." kind of makes me think like, either death, a past, or a problem/fear. This line got me completely. "There's a light that rises up from the bottom of the lake, and its beam has hit me hard, now im wide awake." that kind of makes me think like, Something unexpected happened, and it made that person realise, or "wake up" and look at whats in front of them. Love/friendship, people actually caring about them. Having happiness finally.

What a sweetly beautiful song. Nada Surf's definitely the only band that can make a song like this that sort of sounds haunting but that still sounds so beautiful. And when he says "You're the only person in the world" you can totally hear and feel the like longing in his voice. Well-crafted yet simple.

"cold but not that deep, cos your legs grow"

what does that mean? great song regardless.

I have no idea what it means... someone enlighten us..

it's a great song though..

" If you were here, baby we'd increase the dose. There was no fear in my room when we got close. Call me anytime you've got a ghost. You're the only person in the world I feel that way about."

I think this song is about when you know someone who is either gone having a really hard time, and you care about them so much but there is nothing you can do to make everything right.

"And if you move off to the side, I'll get swept back out Where it's cold but not that deep, cause your legs grow."

To me, this means that if the other person is unreachable, then he will get lost, "swept out to the ocean" where it is cold and uncomfortable. But as humans, we cope to uncomfortable situations, we do what we need to do to keep going, our legs grow, even if we think they can't.

ps ""In my room is, I think, a reference to a side project that Matt Caws did called 'in my room'"

this band is so effing adorable its not even funny

rockchalk, i think you got it dead on.

i've been listening to this song non-stop since it came out on the "Future Soundtrack of America" comp and i'd always been puzzled by the chorus. A couple weeks ago my friend and i were having a heart to heart and she was going through a bad time and said, "well hopefully my legs will grow and get me out of this shit"...and all of a sudden it clicked.

so to you, rockchalk, good job at figuring that out and beating me to the punch on posting the meaning.

beautiful, beautful song nonetheless. and the version on "The Weight is a Gift" is purely incredible.

I was at a Nada Surf gig just yesterday, and with announcing the song he said: "the next song is a metaphorical song, it's about your legs growing to the bottom of the sea". With that he started playing.

So my guess is you being able to stand in the middle of the stone cold ocean is the same metaphor as "the weight is a gift".

Where it's cold but not that deep, cause your legs grow

is implying that someone is scared to do something at first, but once they try it they realize that they could do it all along. I don't know if that was a good way to explain it but think of it as when you think about jumping in the water at a young age and you're scared but once you're in you realize that you're fine.

To me, this song represent faith. To be able to have fatih even though everything is falling apart, about that feeling of calmness you have even though your realtionship is chaos, a calmness that you can't shake off, because you just know that no matter how you treat each other or how everything may seem on the outside, there's still this thing between you that can't be broken... When you feel that it doesn't matter what happens or who we'll become, because you know that there will always be something deeper between the two of you that will bind you together.

God... Messy post. But hey, feelings are... Messy.