Seems like the world's gone underground
Where no gods or heroes dare to go down
As teardrops from a hole in heaven come
Overhead like ravens dropping down like bombs

Through the morning's silver-frosted glow
God says nothing back but I told you so
I told you so

God bless the void of my day dreams
Head back in the snow making angel wings
As slow motion dancing lights at dawn
Sail beneath a burning yellow sun

I'm calling out from the deep ends of my bones
Time says nothing back but I told you so
I told you so

Still waters rising in my mind
Black and deep, smoke behind my eyes
Last night I could not sleep at all
I hallucinated that you were in my arms

To be in your heart I failed my own
Love says nothing back but I told you so,
I told you so

Still here reclimbing every rung
Someone saw something,
someone speak up
Back over the rotted bridge I cross
Open up these graves, let these bodies talk
Buried under leaves blood red and gold
Death says nothing back but I told you so,
I told you so


Lyrics submitted by prayingmantis84

God Says Nothing Back Lyrics as written by Jakob Dylan

Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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God Says Nothing Back song meanings
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17 Comments

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  • +1
    General CommentVS 1 God is looking down on earth and seeing how wrong things are...nobody listens to him. God is sad, he is crying. He is saying He told them so. He is telling the people of the world to listen to Him.

    Go forward to an example of a man who is struggling..

    VS 2 This man is sad about what this world has come to. He daydreams about when he was younger and when things were more innocent.

    VS 3 He is a complicated quiet person...very deep. LIfe is still disappointing him. There is this woman he longs for but isn't with. He dreams about her and thinks if he had her heart he would fill his own and he would be happy.

    VS 4 This is were it's kind of tricky. It sounds to me like he is about to kill himself. If somebody sees something to live for..speak up now. I'm not sure about the whole open up these graves part. Maybe the people who died before him to give him advice or the secret of what to do with this life he is so disappointed in. I think he finally kills himself.

    The whole song he is asking why. Why am I so unhappy and nobody ever gives him an explanation. They say nothing back. Even in death he doesn't have a satifactory answer. Kind of like when you were a kid and you ask you my mom why and she answers "Because I told you so." It wasn't really the answer you were looking for. You wanted something more concrete. I am going to make a giant leap and go back to the first verse. This man was always so sad but he didn't ask God for help. He asked time, love and death. Maybe if he asked God, He would have given him the answers he was seeking.

    I really, really like this song. It never fails to get me to think. I will probably change my mind about what it means because I am most likely completely wrong!
    lou1972on February 17, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General CommentThis is an awesome song. Anyways, it seems to about things like God, time, love, and death sometimes being so empty. I still have no idea what most of these lyrics are references to, but
    spork542on October 28, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General CommentWhoops, posted too early. Continuing...

    but I do think this is what the song means. What do you think?
    spork542on October 28, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General CommentI'm baffled. I'm sure this song is supposed to be really, really deep. I do think he's trying to say something about the pointlessness of life, but he's using so many symbols that I'm not sure what the hell he's trying to say.
    stoolhardyon December 09, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General CommentAfter hearing this song plenty, I'm still not sure what it means; but I think it's a comment on believing in a vengeful God perhaps? That life really is empty if there is a God who hates man. I don't know, just an attempt at understanding this song. Jakob Dylan's lyrics are generally obscure.
    stoolhardyon January 30, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General CommentI would guess that the same reference is made to these different ideas that are more man made than real. Maybe they all exist only because man has a need to believe that they do.
    soze_umamaon February 23, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General CommentI think a key image in this song is lost by a simple lyric mistranslation in two spots. The lyrics in the third verse actually involve the line, "To be in your heart, I failed my own," and in the fourth, "I'm still here, reclimbing every rung". The song seems to be a 'tribute', of sorts, to somebody who simply cannot progress, someone who has lost in the past, and refuses to stop focusing on the 'good' in what was, ultimately, a failure. It's a smear of the 'every stormcloud has a silver lining' mentality. Sometimes, you fail. Sometimes, you lose, and you couldn't have won if you tried harder, and focusing on the good denies you the ability to accept your own fallibility and weakness, and improve. The 'narrator' seems to be trying desperately, even against immaterial, omnipotent forces like God, Time, Love, and even Death, to recapture something he's lost, and lost -for good-. Like trying to mend a split fencing foil with bubble-gum, it's a futile effort, but because of the new, learned instinct to 'look on the bright side', the strength found in admitting failure has died out for the narrator. Powerful song.
    Zemion August 28, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Commenti think it could be a take on the 9/11 tragedy and/or the end of the world.

    "seems like the world's gone underground" could mean like "seems like this world's gone to hell"

    "tear drops from a hole in heaven come" could symbolize the planes

    "____ says nothing back but i told you so" could be like how we all knew this was coming eventually.

    there's some other clues that point to my theory if you look at it, but honestly i'm not sure if this is right or not. idk. just a thought. like the other posters before me, there's so much symbolism it's hard to understand what he means.
    PookieEatWorldon September 01, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Commenti don't think this song is specifically about one thing, like war or 9/11, even though it could definately serve that purpose. i think it's life in general and bad things, catastrophe's i suppose. obviously God, time, love, and death are major factors in most everyones' life and this song is just discussing how they can deceive you.
    haley52441on May 13, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General CommentI agree with Zemi on multiple points. That the narrator has lost something unable to be recovered, definitely. It's a very deep, dark, pessimistic perspective. But I don't think they're trying to look on the 'good' of what it was as much as they're trying to figure out why it is that they lost what they did.

    The four things mentioned: God, Death, Time, Love are all supernatural, intangible things that we have no control over. You can't be sure God exists, you can't stop Death, you can't turn back Time, and you can't make someone Love you.

    It could be because I was going through a very bad time when I first heard and got attached to this song, but it seems like it could be about someone who was religious at some point, who loved someone, and lost them (possibly through their death as a literal taking of its inclusion, or possibly through a break-up as more of the 'death' of their relationship).

    The narrator goes through the process of questioning all four primal things, asking why God didn't help, why Time hasn't help heal their loss, why they don't love him back, why they (or it) was killed.

    It seems like the emotional, or just one part of the person is asking all these questions about the different aspects of what happened (or life in general), and every time they get no answer to their questions and their logical/reasonal side tell themself 'I told you so', in that they might know they'll get no answer, but they seek one even with that in mind.

    Just my two cents. It's a very powerful song and like a poster above, it's hard to understand all the metaphors.
    Ashton Anchorson December 01, 2007   Link

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