Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
My, my, my, we're treating each other just like strangers
You can't ignore the significance of these changes
But you can't treat it lightly and you'll
Have to face the consequences
All my worst fears are grounded
You'll have to make the choice between the Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and me (no no no no)
By this time I got to looking for a kind of substitute
I can't tell you who I found except that it rhymes with "dissolute"
But my baby's so lazy she is
Almost unable and it's
Driving me crazy and her
Loving's just a fable that we sometimes try with passion to recall (oh no no no)
Send for an ambulance or an
Accident investigator
He's breathing like a furnace so I'll
See you later, alligator
He'll set the sheets on fire
Mmm, quite a burning lover
Now he'll barbecue your kitten
Just another learner lover
Now you'll have to make the choice between the Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and me...
You can't ignore the significance of these changes
But you can't treat it lightly and you'll
Have to face the consequences
All my worst fears are grounded
You'll have to make the choice between the Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and me (no no no no)
By this time I got to looking for a kind of substitute
I can't tell you who I found except that it rhymes with "dissolute"
But my baby's so lazy she is
Almost unable and it's
Driving me crazy and her
Loving's just a fable that we sometimes try with passion to recall (oh no no no)
Send for an ambulance or an
Accident investigator
He's breathing like a furnace so I'll
See you later, alligator
He'll set the sheets on fire
Mmm, quite a burning lover
Now he'll barbecue your kitten
Just another learner lover
Now you'll have to make the choice between the Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and me...
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More Featured Meanings
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Somewhere Only We Know
Keane
Keane
Per the FAQ on Keane's website, Keane's drummer Richard Hughes, stated the following:
"We've been asked whether "Somewhere Only We Know" is about a specific place, and Tim has been saying that, for him, or us as individuals, it might be about a geographical space, or a feeling; it can mean something individual to each person, and they can interpret it to a memory of theirs... It's perhaps more of a theme rather than a specific message... Feelings that may be universal, without necessarily being totally specific to us, or a place, or a time..."
With the nostalgic sentiment and the overall tone of the song, I think Keane is attempting to express a Portuguese term known as 'saudade', which does not have a direct English translation but roughly means "that which we remember because it is gone."
Sunglasses at Night
Corey Hart
Corey Hart
In the 1980s, sunglasses were a common fashion for people who wanted to adopt a "tough guy" persona (note all the cop shows from that era -- Simon & Simon, Miami Vice, etc. -- where the lead characters wore shades). So I think this song is about a guy who wears shades as a way of hiding his insecurity after learning that his girlfriend is cheating on him. He's trying to pretend that he's a "tough guy" to hide the fact that his girlfriend's affair is disturbing him.
Indigo
Of Mice & Men
Of Mice & Men
This track is about is about questioning why the sky would choose to be blue if it had the choice to be anything else, “blue also meaning sad,” states frontman Aaron Pauley. “It's about comforting a loved one in a time of loss by telling them you feel blue, too.”
Eno confirmed that the "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" was actually a man named A. W. Underwood, who lived in Paw Paw, Michigan in the 19th century, and was rumored to set things on fire with his breath. Every time I hear this song, it always sounds to me that it starts like a Steely Dan-ish tune and then melts down and rocks out into that wonderfully noisy conclusion that segues into "Baby's on Fire".
What "dissolute" rhymes with? (don't live in english-speaking country)
prostitute.
"Dissolute" rhymes with "prostitute," the "substitute" for his lost love Eno refers to.
This is a prototypical Eno song, upbeat tune, very sinister lyrics. Though the "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" refers to an actual person (an African-American from Paw Paw, Michigan with alleged pyrokinetic abilities), the "Paw Paw" is also Dadaistic and allows Eno to make his narrator seem very angry, on the edge of unreason.
The third stanza can be taken either as a description of the narrator setting his lost love and her paramour ("the paw paw negro blowtorch") afire in their love bed, or of the paramour's intense but inept love-making
("He's breathing like a furnace so I'll See you later, alligator He'll set the sheets on fire Mmm, quite a burning lover Now he'll barbecue your kitten Just another learner lover")
The "Now he'll barbecue your kitten" is almost certainly meant to be an ambiguous reference to his love's pudendum ("kitty" being a cognate in English with "pussy").
"Just another learner lover" is a parting shot at the girl he's talking to... that the man she's seeing instead of him is inexperienced, all physical passion, no substance.
An early case of Eno taking a meme (like "the paw paw negro blowtorch") and using it for his own ends to make a song euphonious while adding emotional depth unrelated to the original meaning of the meme. `
The synth solo on this song is unbelievable, and fits well with the theme.