What Is Your Secret?

It's been awhile since i last heard a cool acoustic song. They really have matured! Definitely my favorite off their latest album.

i had to make an account because i couldn't believe this song had not been analyzed. it's truly underrated.

centers around this idea: "Do you ever do this, you think back on all the times you've had with someone and you just replay it in your head over and over again and you look for those first signs of trouble?"

--- Tom, (500) Days of Summer

this song is written in retrospect. it's that feeling everyone gets after something happens to them where they feel like may not have fully understood how things got to where they are, or what went wrong.

the first lines "so we sat and talked then we walked and talked" describe when what you do when you first get to know someone. there's always so much to talk about. "but what is your secret" shows how he realizes that as much as they talk, he may not and in fact never know everything about this person.

"dragged it on and on even favorite songs but your division's wrong what is your secret?"

i'm sure many people can relate to staying up late at night and talking to someone they have a great interest in. you talk about everything; likes, dislikes, etc. Again, he questions whatever the person he's speaking to is portraying to him about who they are. these great moments where you're getting to know this person and things become intimate are again interrupted with this idea that person is hiding something or not what they appear to be. he feels the person is deceptive.

"i don't care about you anymore the people got tired our movies don't play much anymore the actress was fired"

to me, the "our movies don't play much anymore" can mean either of two things. it's like when you have a move that appeals to you because you see yourself and the person you love or are interested in as the main characters of this drama or rom-com. at this point, he's saying that their movies don't play much anymore. he doesn't see him and this person in these particular movies anymore. this can also mean that they had their own favorite movies they saw together. like those movies that run on tv again and again, these movies don't appear anymore. he's forgetting/letting go of this person.

"you said you were yourself not being someone else that this was new for you but what was your secret?"

again, this idea of being misled by someone. when beginning a relationship, or experiencing a prospective one, EVERYTHING appears to feel like something you've never felt before. people make these kinds of absolute claims that are not necessarily true.

"you said just what i said so why's the meter red? and why's the needle pegged? what is your secret?"

he's arrived at the moment where things went wrong (or at least what he thinks caused things to change). if he were sure of what went wrong, he wouldn't have written this song. he seems to think he said something wrong, which he feels was justified in that the other person gave the impression that he would be okay in saying whatever he said. again, he feels misled. "so why's the meter red" means that at that point, all alarms sounded for the other person. things abruptly ended, and he's left with all these questions trying to piece everything together.

"you want to control you want to be controlled you're like a little switch and then you take your toll"

more of the same idea. this other person confuses him, displays a lot of contradictory behavior. flip flops. he doesn't understand what this person wanted. he's trying to understand what this person wanted hoping that this will inform what went wrong between them.

"your every reckless twist i wasn't made for this thank god that life is so long and the city's so big

self-explanatory. he feels this person was reckless with his feelings and his heart. he's not strong enough for this, he wasn't built to handle these kinds of situations. he knows he'll get over it though, as he recognizes life is long and the city's big. he's bound to meet other people, and probably more important to him, never run into this person again, although it's pretty obvious that he probably hopes he'll run into this person again. we all secretly still have feelings for people that have hurt us, and there are times where we do wish we could at least see them again in some chance encounter. like the song's title, "what is your secret?"---maybe this is his secret. something he'll never admit to.

"i don't care about you anymore i try not to think about you"

these last lines are just lies. if you don't care about someone, you don't actively remind yourself to not think of them. he still has feelings for this person. he wrote a whole song about this person. he obviously still cares. a lot of the lines start with "you, you, you;" his head is completely preoccupied with this person. i really don't have time to correct these lyrics, but before he moves onto this stanza,

"you said just what i said so why's the meter red? and why's the needle pegged? what is your secret?"

he repeats "so we sat and talked then we walked and talked"

this shows how he just keeps arriving back to this idea. "BUT we were just getting to know each other, spending hours and hours talking about everything and anything, i don't understand what went wrong."

if he were over this person, the song would be titled "i don't care about you anymore." it's titled "what is your secret?" meaning he's STILL asking himself this, and still searching for an answer.