World Spins Madly On

This song probably means more to me than anything else in the whole world. I let the most important love of my life go, because I was too young to know better. I thought it was impossible to really be in love with your first love, someone you met at 16, all your life. But when I got back in touch after another 16 years, I realized I still loved this person deeply (and worse, the feelings were mutual). Only now, the paths we've already created for ourselves prevent us from being together. It is the greatest sorrow of my life, and every time I hear this song I feel a sense of desperation, because my one true love is out there, without me, while the world spins madly on.

I don't think it's hangover mode, seems more to me like it's a headache from crying yourself to sleep the night before or something like that. I think there's few feelings worse than waking up and wanting to cry.

This is a vivid capture of a person caught up in deep and intense grief over the loss of a girlfriend. He is overwhelmed by his grief and he cannot move on with the rest of the world. He can't stop thinking and fantasizing about her. Where is she now?

He tries to move on - make the world new while not forgetting her. But he can't. It's hopeless and another day of loneliness and torment goes by. Wishing for death. This is madness.

We know what this feels like. I know it all too well. Very effective song and lyrics indeed.

I'm going to go ahead and apply this to my life. I liked this girl for a long time and didn't do anything about it. She just moved away as I started to fall in love with her. I regret not doing anything and just want to lay around and do nothing. But i can't, because "the world spins madly on".

I agree with Stranded that there's more than one interpretation. For whatever reason someone they love is no longer there. And although what they want to do is just curl up and die, the world doesn't work like that and everything just carries on going. But at the same time, although they're carrying on as well, none of it is meaningful, which is why they feel like they're "standing still" and that all the hope and joy in the world is gone: "the day is gone"

I remember when my friend died, looking out the window and there were these children walking home from school and thinking "they don't know that my world has just fallen apart". For them, and for most people in the world, life was just the same as when they woke up that morning. I feel like that's a big part of this song, that life doesn't stop just because something awful has happened to you.

love this song! i think it means that everyone around you is moving on from relationships or what not, but you're still stuck in the past. you try so hard to let go and move on, but it's just so hard for you.

The song “World Spins Madly On,” sung by a contemporary folk-like music group known as The Weepies, is in my opinion a nostalgic, regretful, and contrite song because it sings repeatedly about having done nothing for another person and about doing nothing still, even though the song never clearly specifies that its singer is sorry.
In this song, there are many references to personal focuses. As a matter of fact, all I could find in this song were personal focuses. At the start of the song, the lyrics go “Woke up and wished that I was dead/with an aching in my head/I lay motionless in bed,” which suggest the apathy of the singer towards outside issues, and focuses more on how he himself is feeling and what he is wanting from the day (1-3). Another example of a personal focus can be found in the lyrics “I let the day go by/I always say goodbye/I watch the stars from my window sill,” because it addresses what the singer’s tendencies are and what the singer does (11-13). As for a final example, when the song says “I thought of you and where you’d gone,” I interpret this as a personal focus because I think there is a lot more beneath the surface in this sentence (4, 20). This line shows the despondent curiosity of the singer about the person he once knew, and it also implies that he is missing this person because he’s thinking about them.
In this song, there were a few poetic devices that I was able to identify. Because of its nostalgic tone, it seems suitable to define this song as being elegiac, since the singer seems depressed about becoming separated from someone he used to be so close to. This is demonstrated in the line “I thought of you and where you’d gone” (4). There is also some irony in this song when the singer says “The whole world is moving and I’m standing still” because on one hand, it says how everything is moving; but on the other hand, it says how he’s not moving at all, even though in the literal sense, he’s a part of the whole world (14). Also, when the lyrics go “Everything that I said I’d do/like make the world brand new,” I consider this somewhat of a simile even though it is more of an example rather than a figure of speech, because it still includes the word “like” (6-7).
There were both postmodern and modern characteristics in “World Spins Madly On.” In this song, we see a postmodern example of how the singer is cultivating absence; the lyrics state how the “I” in this case was thinking about his own problems, and how the world moved on without him (4-5, 11-14, 20-21).  Another postmodern example in this song relates to how truth is personal, because the singer sings about his own life and problems and what he had done or does (11-13). However, a modern characteristic in this song is how he was not able to do his part; he sings about how he got lost and didn’t do what he said he’d do, as if taking the blame (6-9).
The voices behind the song, The Weepies, were influenced by the 1960s folk trio of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Upon listening to songs of Peter, Paul, and Mary, one can hear how more acoustically defined some of the songs are, and how they hold a kind of calming tone. In “World Spins Madly On,” the tone is also calming and relaxing (although somewhat depressing as well) and acoustically based. However, even in how similar they sound, The Weepies and Peter, Paul, and Mary sing about very different things: The Weepies about more postmodern struggles; Peter, Paul, and Mary, modern struggles.
In conclusion, the song “World Spins Madly On” reflects on the regrettable past of the singer and how he lost who he was close to because of his idleness in the important moments in his life. However, I think that there is helpful truth to be found in something like this; maybe we can act while we still can and before it’s too late, because all it might take is some effort.

-T

Isn't it possible that it's a lost love, best friend, or even close family member that died? I don't think there's just one explanation to the song, and that's why so many people can identify with it.

This could be losing the love of your life because of a mistake.

This could be waking up with a hangover and realizing that the best times of your life are gone because you didn't make the effort to realize how lucky you are.

Or it could be your soulmate (however you see them) has died and your life has stopped moving as a result, even though "the world spins madly on."

HEY KITSONSMITH!!! I know it's been months and you probably won't read this, but if you do, and if you're telling the truth, you better go and find him and make sweet love to make up for 16+ years. Life is too short girlfriend. No regrets.

I think it's about sitting and moping around while everything around you continues to go on. Almost like no one cares about how you are feeling. The world just goes on without you. You're sleeping the days away, just trying to forget whatever it is that is hurting you. I think melancholy is a good word.