Broke into the old apartment
This is where we used to live
Broken glass, broke and hungry
Broken hearts and broken bones
This is where we used to live
Why did you paint the walls?
Why did you clean the floor?
Why did you plaster over
The hole I punched in the door?
This is where we used to live
Why did you keep the mousetrap?
Why did you keep the dish rack?
These things used to be mine
I guess they still are, I want them back
Broke into the old apartment
Forty-two steps from the street
Crooked landing, crooked landlord
Narrow lane way filled with crooks
This is where we used to live
Why did they pave the lawn?
Why did they change the lock?
Why did I have to break it
I only came here to talk
This is where we used to live
How is the neighbor downstairs?
How is her temper this year?
I turned up your TV
And stomped on the floor just for fun
I know we don't live here anymore
We bought an old house on the Danforth
She loves me and her body keeps me warm
And I'm happy here
This is where we used to live
Broke into the old apartment
Tore the phone out of the wall
Only memories, fading memories
Blending into dull tableaux
I want them back
I want them back (this is where we used to live)
I want them back (this is where we used to live)
I want them back (this is where we used to live)
I want them back
This is where we used to live
Broken glass, broke and hungry
Broken hearts and broken bones
This is where we used to live
Why did you paint the walls?
Why did you clean the floor?
Why did you plaster over
The hole I punched in the door?
This is where we used to live
Why did you keep the mousetrap?
Why did you keep the dish rack?
These things used to be mine
I guess they still are, I want them back
Broke into the old apartment
Forty-two steps from the street
Crooked landing, crooked landlord
Narrow lane way filled with crooks
This is where we used to live
Why did they pave the lawn?
Why did they change the lock?
Why did I have to break it
I only came here to talk
This is where we used to live
How is the neighbor downstairs?
How is her temper this year?
I turned up your TV
And stomped on the floor just for fun
I know we don't live here anymore
We bought an old house on the Danforth
She loves me and her body keeps me warm
And I'm happy here
This is where we used to live
Broke into the old apartment
Tore the phone out of the wall
Only memories, fading memories
Blending into dull tableaux
I want them back
I want them back (this is where we used to live)
I want them back (this is where we used to live)
I want them back (this is where we used to live)
I want them back
Lyrics submitted by ToniteReprise
The Old Apartment Lyrics as written by Steven Page Ed Robertson
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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She loves me and her body keeps me warm
I'm happy here
But this is where we used to live" maybe i'm crazy cause i'm the only one who thinks this, but that was my interpretation.
Throughout the song the speaker is remembering things about the place (being broke, punching a hole in the wall, breaking a bone, etc.), which things the new tenants changed (painting the walls, changing the locks, cleaning the floor, getting rid of the old phone on the wall), and by seeing other people do things with what's left of these memories (they covered the hole, they're using the same dish rack and mousetrap) and generally changing what he did to his place, he wants it all to be the same again. The new tenants are changing things without knowing the sentimental value and are in a way destroying that value and those memories, and the speaker wants to have those memories and value back. (I want them back)
Supposedly, we used to live in the place of 42 per say, and forgot everything upon being born here. Of course this supposes that we came form somewhere...
Breaking the locks is also another indicator, because human beings have to break the barriers in order to get any semblance of 42 once again while living.
Also he talks about being happy now with his girl here. Happiness in this world again is supposedly based on achieving true love, which ironically is identical with understanding and connection with again 42.
Just a thought, it really changes the meaning of the song though potentially...
Very out there I know
I don't really have FOND memories of college, myself. Then again, I also wasn't living on my own for the second college. First, I was in a completely different CITY (was in Royal Palm Beach and my college was down in Miami, by the ghetto).
The couple has moved on from there. They're more financially secure. They now have the dream house and possibly a car and a couple of kids too. The singer is happy with his life in general but with the new stage of life comes new challenges, possibly more complicated challenges like workplace politics, determining how to teach his children to do the right thing, drawing up a will, looking after aging in laws.
He goes back to the apartment because part of him misses the simplicity of those early days when it was just the two of them living on love.
He is angry that the place has changed because we're all a little narcissistic and deep down we tend to feel that we can change but other things should stay the way we left them. Deep down he felt like that old apartment would always be his.
"Steven Page has said that the song was partly inspired by "Back to the Old House" by The Smiths.[citation needed] While some[weasel words] have misinterpreted the lyrics to mean that the man in the song is stalking an ex-girlfriend and breaks into her apartment to terrorize her, Page has said that this is definitely not the case.[citation needed] The person in the song and his girlfriend are still together and happy, having "bought an old house on the Danforth" (Danforth Avenue in Toronto). However, he goes back to visit "the old apartment" "where we used to live," and winds up breaking in to reminisce. Although recalling "broken glass," the "crooked landing, crooked landlord," and other disadvantages, he nonetheless feels nostalgia for "fading memories / blending into dull tableaux."