In Spite of Me

Anyone else think that he's referring to someone who became a TV or movie star?

"Late last night, I saw you in my living room" - where TV's normally are "You seemed so close but yet so cold" - On the TV but not actually there?

Just something I'd thought about.

yeah i think "in spite of me" is cynical, as if he's always been nothing but an obstacle to her.

I think they loved each other and he was supportive but she left him because she wasn’t strong enough to juggle her focused successful-career-oriented discipline with his drugs-depression-insomnia-fueled lifestyle, felt herself allowing herself to slip into his shadow (as all that childhood programming demands), and wasn’t willing to let her career become roadkill..

I think he’s moved on too… but sometimes, late at night, still thinks about how it could have been, and feels the layers of anger, guilt, resentment… it feels like shes doing it deliberately to hurt him (and its easier to forget, that way), but perhaps he ultimately knows shes not, and his final thought is to mock his own cynicism.

I think that he left that girl, and she handled it badly. And she used all the pain, and anger to make it. So in a way, he thinks that those bad feelings, helped her achieve her life goals.

He probably thought she would take him back if he wanted it, but realized at some point that she has moved on.

This is one of my all time favourite songs because it hits really close to home. I think the writer was in a relationship with a very ambitious, narcissistic and ungrateful woman. He poured all of his energy into her and helping her succeed in an attempt to earn recognition and love which she didn't give (enough).

When she started taking off and outgrowing what he could do for her, her eroded with his future value to her career. He hung on to her more and more desperately, which, because she was already emotionally leaving made her more and more angry and treat him worse and worse as she began to see him as a lead weight, until she just upgraded partners and gave her "love" to someone else that was much more valuable to the next level of career success.

She just discarded him. No recognition, or gratitude, or appreciation for how big a part he played in her history and current success and only remembers how angry he made her because he was too pathetic to just let go and fade away when she was done with him.

And as he's grieving and drinking alone and telling a stranger how pivotal a role he played in this person's career advancement, he's so broken and hollow that the stranger just smiles and pity's him in disbelief.

I think he wrote this song from his Dad's perspective talking about him. I don't think he was ever very close to his Dad, and his Dad didn't even really know how talented his son was until he was gone. I think he wrote it partly because he didn't feel supported by his Dad, and partly hoping that deep down his Dad was proud of him and just didn't know how to show his love very well.

Is this song meant to be cynical? What I mean is, do you think the narrator is bitter when he say "in spite of me"? Obviously, thats what it seems like, but the music is so wistful and melancholy... when I first heard it I didn't pick up on the bitterness because the song is so beautiful. In any case, I guess its about an ex that he wants back, but hes bitter because shes moved on and he can't yet.

Is this song meant to be cynical? What I mean is, do you think the narrator is bitter when he say "in spite of me"? Obviously, thats what it seems like, but the music is so wistful and melancholy... when I first heard it I didn't pick up on the bitterness because the song is so beautiful. In any case, I guess its about an ex that he wants back, but hes bitter because shes moved on and he can't yet.

If he's being cynical then why is the hope of this person returning a cruel thought? No, it isn't spite as in hatred, its "You became a success despite being involved with a deadbeat like me." From the first verse it sounds like a son or daughter, and he's drunk at a bar telling a stranger how proud he is.

"In spite of me" is ambiguous. It could mean "despite me" or "to spite me". Likewise, he could be genuine in saying that he is lucky to have known and helped this person, with greater talents than his, on their way to better things; or he could be sarcastic, like, yknow, "I'm SO proud to you used me as a step up in your ILLUSTRIOUS career".

F knows which meaning was intended. But I'd like to think he was subtle enough to intend both.