Quiet as a Mouse

I think this song is clearly about war.

"Tourists rob you of your home In sunken boats And you can hide quiet as a mouse But they'll find you out And she aked me why have you felt So down and out You can stay with me at my house"

She offers him a place to stay while the warfare goes on near where he lives.

"When I woke my back was broke from lyin on the floor Sunlight poured through all the cracks in my front door"

I figure this means they were bombed or something; either way his home was destroyed while he was away hiding.

The song is telling us to WAKE UP because we have so much to do here on earth. There is so much bad shit going on, and for the most part, we sit back and ignore it or hide, and we don't do anything ot help. He's also telling the people effected by the war to stand up and do whatever they can. Do not back down, do not go down without a fight.

Anyway, it goes on about this guy's story, and how wherever he lives is still wartorn and he's managed to raise a son in these conditions. (Or, perhaps, it's a different story altogether at this point.)

"Tourists robbed me of my child They smoked him out He was draft dodgin some war Till they found him out And he came wanderin in the night to his mom and me

And he said times, they gotta change, but so do we."

The most important lines being the last two. "Times, they gotta change, but so do we." No more cowering, especially if this stuff is happening to you. Fight fght fight, wake up and do something.

"When I woke I was alive in somebody's room I felt life and love and hope infesting my bones."

This is followed by, once again, "Wake up." because the singer doesn't think this is the attitude you should have towards said war. Hiding with someone else, feeling gratitude, that's all great and good, but it's missing the MOTIVATION and the PASSION to fight and defend yourself.

"When I woke my body was dyin all over the floor I felt apathy and hate infesting my bones."

Now there's a space in the music after these lines, BEFORE it goes to "Wake up!" I think, because this IS the way to feel about it. Feel angry, feel violated-- because you ARE being violated. And do something about it.

The only problem I have with this is "apathy", which doesn't make much sense in that line. Because you can't feel apathy AND hate, seeing as apathy is the absence of emotion. So what I make out of that is, perhaps, apathy is used to mean a dull sense of "I'm so tired of this happening.", where you're right about to give up and not even take the effort to care anymore, and THEN this person starts feeling the hate in their bones, therefore motivating them.

That's what this song meant to me, anyway. I think hate can be a good motivator if you don't le it blind you. After all, if people hadn't hated how things were in the past and done something about them, imagine life today.

This song really gets my blood pumping.

it's "he came home late in the night" and "when I woke, my body was dyin' and my woman had flown"

but this song is so so amazing.

THIS SONG IS INCREDIBLE, THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO BE HUGE!!!

I like this song...does anyone have any insight as to what it may mean? I'm kind of curious, and I don't really get it. Margot & Such remind me of Snow Patrol.

This song amazes me. It's great to crank up when driving alone in your car and sing the lyrics as loud as can. Especially all the "When I woke..." Incredibly catchy.

I'm not sure what it means, but it definitely stresses "waking up" a lot. Maybe realize something about yourself? Your current state of life, all the possibilities you're missing, or something? Because in the chorus it says that you need to wake up, because you're missing these things, time's going by and you aren't realizing it. Maybe you need to make the most of your life?

I dunno.

And I absolutely love the trumpet in this piece, by the way.

it's pretty hard to tell what this about, but I'd guess it's about feeling obligated to keep living and going on, even though you hate the way the world is.

Someone is robbed of what is rightfully his, and he can't escape it by hiding; he gets hurt anyway. His friend/girlfriend tries to help him through it and get him back on his feet ("you can stay with me at my house").

The first chorus sums up the whole song. The guy wakes up and feels terrible, but the sunlight makes him realize that he slept really late and neglected his responsibilities. What happened to him is still unfair, but he has to keep living and doing his duty.

The next verse (which is one of the saddest lyrics I've ever heard) is similiar. I think the boy was draft dodging because he was a good, innocent person--he didn't support the war and didn't want to kill people. But he eventually realized "times, they gotta change, but so do we"--to him, a world where you're forced to kill people in a war is terrible, but to the rest of the world, he seems crazy and wrong. Even though he thinks it's wrong, he has to give in and do his job.

The last two choruses mean that no matter how your life is going, you have to take care of your responsibilities. The first chorus is a positive situation--the guy is "alive" and full of "life and love and hope." The second is the opposite--the guy is "dying" and full of "apathy and hate," and his girlfriend has left him. However, after both choruses the song says the same thing: "Wake up, you've got a lot of things to do/Wake up, the sun is rising without you." No matter how the guy feels, he gets up and fulfills his responsibilities.

Now that I've actually read the lyrics, this song reminds me of the Postal Service song, Sleeping In. Especially the verse (Tourists robbed me of my child) that seems to be about a son being drafted into the war, and the repeated line "Wake up you've got a lot of things to do". It seems like the writer is trying to make us see that society is rather screwy, and we need to do something about it instead of "sleeping in" (As PS says) before it comes back and bites us in the ass. We have to (as mockingsmile said) "Take care of [our] responsibilities".

gonna go out on a limb here and say war.

When I hear this song/watch the music video, I think about a large scale invasion (Tourists robbed you of your home) Tourists obviously meaning the invaders. Also you get the feeling that the 'tourists'are relentless with the line "You can hide quiet as a mouse, but they'll find you out." Song has incredible emotion and passion