The Old Apartment

I disagree with everyone so far... for most of the song you think that its about an old flame and where they used to live and how much he misses his old life, but the it has a surprise ending. you think that they've broken up, but really they moved out and lived happily ever after together... like they moved into a real home and started a family. "We bought an old house on the Danforth 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.

In one of the podcasts they made while making Barenaked Ladies Are Me, Steve and Ed were talking about this song and apparently the guy and his girlfriend did just move somewhere else and didn't break up and it's about not wanting to see what somebody else has done to someplace where you've made so many memories.

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)

Like others have said, I've always thought this song was pure nostalgia. Most of us have that first miserable apartment we lived in where it was crowded and nothing worked and there were bugs or creeps in the alley and all we could do was imagine getting out of there and the hardships we have in that stage of life where we're just starting out and money is a struggle.

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.

When I hear the song I think about the first guy I ever lived with, and the studio apt we had at first. It was a cramped horrible gas smelling firetrap that was too small with too many nosey neighbors. I think about how much in love we were in that horrid little apt, and i think of the much better place we got together later on, but still the best memories are from the early days. That's what this song means to me, just recalling the days gone by.

This song makes me think of the apartments I lived in when I was in college. Yesterday I took a trip to campus to visit some old friends, and I drove by two of the places I had lived in. I felt compelled to put this song in my CD player. Just makes me think of all the memories we made in those apartments and all the fun we had. Now it's over and I am in the real world. For those of you still in college--ENJOY YOUR TIME THERE!! It is the best years of our lives.

this song describes part of my life. i moved and went back to visit my old town one year later. some things were the same but mostly everything changed.

Here's what it's about:

"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."

I think this song is about moving on. This guy likes his new life "she loves me and her body keeps me warm.. i'm happy here" but old memories come back to him by breaking into the old apartment where he once lived. This song pretty much explains itself.

I jst got the newest Barenaked Ladies CD, Disc One 1991-2001: All Their Greatest Hits. In the booklet, it gives commentaries on each of the songs on the CD, spoken by Steven Page. His last comment on this song is "And by the way, to answer one of the most common questions I get, the protagonist is still with the same woman - it's the new tenants of his old place that he's intruded upon." Therefore, I do not believe the rumor to be true.

right on, CobyChick. i was definitely fooled.