In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Black and blue from passing around, Whitey says, "Lady ain't a hit no more"
Cecilia Amanda, I don't want to see you get like you got before"
Another patient in a party dress yesterday, dancing on a permanent scratch
In a place where lonely men pay to make their opposites match.
Little Miss Amanda wants to know how long you're going to be gone
And she asked me can I fix it so your record plays the rest of her song
Because every remembrance of you has been buried below
Every memory that I unhappily know
I'm sorry for you and your kid
The things you promised that you never did
She asked me, "Are you a pretty dancer?"
But I don't think I'm going to answer
Oh, black and blue from passing around while you fake me back to the daily score
If you got a little baby now, I don't want to see you around here no more
Ah, Amanda put on her new party dress yesterday, dancing to a record you scratched
I'm some dealing amateur actor making opposites match
Cecilia Amanda, I don't want to see you get like you got before"
Another patient in a party dress yesterday, dancing on a permanent scratch
In a place where lonely men pay to make their opposites match.
Little Miss Amanda wants to know how long you're going to be gone
And she asked me can I fix it so your record plays the rest of her song
Because every remembrance of you has been buried below
Every memory that I unhappily know
I'm sorry for you and your kid
The things you promised that you never did
She asked me, "Are you a pretty dancer?"
But I don't think I'm going to answer
Oh, black and blue from passing around while you fake me back to the daily score
If you got a little baby now, I don't want to see you around here no more
Ah, Amanda put on her new party dress yesterday, dancing to a record you scratched
I'm some dealing amateur actor making opposites match
Lyrics submitted by thewinepresss
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"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
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“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Here's my take on this song:
Cecilia is a hooker and a stripper ("dancing...in a place where lonely men make their opposites match"). She has a daughter (Amanda) and has vowed that she will stay away from drugs and clean up her life for her kid ("things you promised that you never did"). But she has been beaten by a Jon ("black and blue...", a hospital "patient in a party dress") and her pimp "Whitey" says that it will make her less desirable to the men ("she ain't a hit no more"). He sends her to get more drugs (the "daily score"), possibly from the narrator (Elliott??). This saddens the narrator. He is afraid that Amanda will follow in her mother's footsteps, and that he is contributing to this outcome ("she asked me can I fix it so YOUR record plays the rest of HER song" isn't just literal and the weird pronouns aren't accidental: "YOUR record"=the mother's lifestyle, "HER song"=Amanda's life.). Amanda wants to be a dancer like her mother, she looks up to her and asks the narrator about it but he obviously doesn't want to tell what kind of dancer she is. He wants to protect her. But in the end Amanda does become her mother. She puts on "a new party dress" (mirroring the party dress worn by her mother in the hospital after being beaten) and Amanda starts "dancing to a record YOU scratched" (aka living her mother's lifestyle) with her own version of a lying, drug dealing pimp (the "dealing amateur actor making opposites match").
All in all it's a sad story of the cyclical nature of addiction, abuse and exploitation. It's made all the worse because the scenes with the narrator talking to the little girl about dancing feel so innocent even as the 'dancing' and the 'records' serve as metaphors for the inevitability of her innocence being breached. And all sung to a poppy upbeat melody, just to underline the contrast one more time.
Heartbreaking and brilliant as only Elliott can be.