The Blood Is Love

love and death, yep. i think this song is split in two though, him singing about before his love died and then after. this is my favorite song.

'saw you in a way beyond figure out these lines of life have been drawn and can't be removed Our eyes is all it took to know'

i think this is him talking about his love and how close they were and how he knew she was going to die as 'these lines of life have been drawn and cant be removed' shows.

'Open up your eyes deep blue glassy take and swim til water and sky now are one out of two Oh my bloodshot eyes'

i see this as him looking into her eyes and 'swim til water and sky' meaning sort of a reach for eternal happiness, water and sky meaning somewhere beautiful. 'now are one out of two' him being just one as shes dying, instead of being part of two together. 'oh my blood shot eyes' meaning him being upset and crying.

'Open up your mouth and touch your lips to mine that we may make a kiss that can pierce through death and survive your words have branded my mind'

hes trying to hold on to her 'touch your lips to mine that we may make a kiss that can pierce through death and survive'. beautiful. after this verse i think she has died, as the music gets more intense and dark, i think it represents her death.

'Still I hold your hand wrapped as if a ring that we of flesh and blood are only carrying'

again, holding on after shes gone, talking about his love. i think the line 'wrapped as if a ring, that we of flesh and blood are only carrying' means that he thinks of them as married (even if they were not) because of their connection, because love and marriage mean more than the rings people 'people meaning we of flesh and blood, those who are alive' are 'only carrying'.

'so hard to... well you know the seed waits for the reaper to sew'

'the seed waits for the reaper to sew' means once people are created they wait for death to take them. so hard to.. deal with her death.

'Every breath I know Indignity to learn it Can strain and break your heart'

i think 'indignity to learn it' means indignity to learn how to deal with her death. so i think it means, because i cant bare to deal with her death, every breath i take can strain and break my heart.

'Take all your pieces home You ask when you're alone what is love? The blood is love'

maybe about having to go out in public while dealing with your sadness and going home alone with your broken heart 'take all your pieces home' and questioning things.
i dont quite understand what 'the blood is love' means. but i kind of like that im not sure what it means. i want it to mean he killed himself. (i think its romantic)

In three words: love and mortality. This song is basically about the carnal nature of love, romantic and sexual.
"these lines of life have been drawn" "the seed waits for the reaper to sough" (NOT sew, by the way) This is about impending death, not necessarily recent death or death coming soon, but lingering somewhere in the future. Blood characterizes the carnal facet of being human, so love is the carnal answer to death, lending a dark edge to the subject. by the way, IT ROCKS

If you just listen to the music, it sounds like the soundtrack to a game, i can't pick it though.

Class song!

this song isn´t a basic QOTSA song, but I love this song. It´s pretty scary. The blood is love... I think about murder... I don´t know!! But maybe it´s the dark side of the love.. Anyway, I love this song!!

nice write up by kwsnbrg.

to me it seems to refer throughout the song to the inevitability of death.

"these lines of life, have been drawn and cant be removed" - life travels along a set path ending in death which cannot be avoided. a persons life line is set.

"the seed waits for the reaper to sew" - a human "seed" waits to be born, but this is at the hand of the reaper. the reaper brings death. This is saying: to be born is to die. using the analogy of crops being sowed and then harvested by the reaper.

the main point of the song is then how does love fit into this. "what is love?".

"That we may make a kiss that can pierce through Death & survive Your words have branded my mind" - thier love strives for eternity but in the end it is linked to thier non eternal bodies "we of flesh and blood, are only carrying". the last stanza deals with the actual death "take all your peices home" - when they die everything that was a part of them goes with them. "what is love?" is a rhetorical question being asked by those who are left behind, which the song answers for them. "the blood is love" meaning, just as the blood dies and decays so does the love that person contained. love is no more eternal than our bodies are.

a very dark and bitter song. another interpretation of the last two lines could be the blood meaning offspring. ie an echo of their love is passed down through thier anscestors achieving eternity and thus peircing through death and surviving. Although thats a happier conclusion to the song it doesn't fit the mood and the depressing music.

Great song still. My favourite off lullabies album

It seems to me this song is about two lovers and the issue of abortion, but perhaps that's going too deep. I mean, it might be about sacrifices we as people have to take occasionally for the better of the current state of a relationship. First off, Josh speaks about lines of life that cannot be removed and sometimes people can know something without saying a word, a sort of unspoken understanding, as suggested by "our eyes is all it took to know." Now, when he gets to "touch your lips to mine, that we may make a kiss that can pierce through death & survive," maybe he's telling that particular someone that he thinks their love is strong enough to withstand this tumultuous period within the relationship. In addition, Josh Homme makes the obvious reference of the "reaper" waiting to sow the seed. But taking the whole song and its ominous tone and the line "your words have branded my mind," the suggestion of abortion may have ultimately been too much for his counterpart, finally questioning the other's (most likely volatile) reaction. Finally, I'd like to say that when Queens came to the Metropolis in Montreal, the live performance of this song made me realize just what a powerful kiss-off this might be, with some of his minimalist elements in the lyrical content, Homme said all he needed to say and maybe, just maybe that's all he needs to say. Anyway, that's my take. I need a beer...

forgive the cliche but i cant believe nobody has posted on this song. its one of favs from lullalyes to paralyze. i like how this song is really dark and a bit creepy. The meaning is a bit lost on me tho, it seems to be describing how somebody has lost a love and in the end up questions the very notion of love, in the end concludes that out of pain and suffering love in made? ther also seems to be references to sex "now are one out of two" and "the seed waits for the reaper to sew"

I'm with you, this song definatly deserves some posts. The intro starts off carnivalish (if thats a word). If I can give my own interpretation.

Meet a girl at a fair, carnival, etc. Do everything with her from skinny dipping to getting high "oh my bloodshot eyes". The honeymoon is now over but he's stuck now. Relationships are the devil.

listen to the contradictor remix - its very creepy and sad - sheds a tear to your eyes