Ashamed

I think this song's about approaching a relationship with a sort of religious devotion and fantasy, only to have it crumble and destroy your faith in love. There are a lot of allusions to religion (halos, angel, purest light, kneel and weep, visions, heaven). The narrator at first seems redeemed by the relationship, he imagines it to complete his life and perfect him. Yet the relationship is ultimately flawed because the narrator is ultimately flawed. He is stuck between being miserable because he is too troubled to make his girl complete, yet he is miserable without her.

Verse 1: The narrator has found love, and has been purified through it, although he was not pure to begin with. A beautiful future of love, trust, and loyalty is imagined. "Oh, If your eyes water, you've got your favorite number to spin" = Call me when you're down?

Verse 2: The narrator is too troubled by his own demons to create the bliss he once imagined. Instead he only destroys the relationship with his own inner violence.

"I'm caught in a whirlwind I'm going to heaven"

• Remembering the nameless wish he called bliss once?

"I'm standing on trial and it's painted on canvas An eternal testament to how we are so animalistic"

• Only to find that he was not judged worthy of bliss? This line is my favorite, yet I feel I understand it the least.

Verse 3: The narrator decided to pick himself up instead of wallow in shame, and start anew. Only, the thought of new life without love causes him to metaphorically die.

Sorry if this is a shitty interpretation. But I listen to this song over and over and still have trouble understanding it. I guess that's what makes it so great.

Beautiful song.

This will seem strange but I think this song is about someone who killed a coworker or manager at a McDonald’s and goes to trial gets executed. “Hit him with a book and how he crumbles, Oh you should see how the arches tumbled , They’re golden no more “ The Golden Arches says McDonald’s to me, and then he’s standing on trial with the courtroom illustration “it’s painted on canvas, an eternal testament to how we are so animalistic”— killing someone in an act of violence is an act of animal brutality. He’s commenting too on people seeing it as tragic and if they feel pity towards him “if your eyes water, you got your favorite number to spin”— the outcome being uncertain. He’s also seeking redemption asking for that purest light to shine on him. In the end he’s fantasizing about what his life could have been right as he is being put to death. It might seem like a strange interpretation but I do wonder if he wrote this based on something that really happened. After all, he wrote about John Wayne Gacy in Clowning Around.

good job, here's some corrections:

"but i am broken and torn with halos at my feet"

"started for the town light at the front yard and died"

great song

broken and torn with HALOS at my feet! angel ref. .. duhhhh

and it seems more logical to hear

started for the townline,- front yard i died

The absolutely hilarious stage banter really undercuts just how personal a lot of his songs are. Very talented guys, and McCauley is a pretty damn impressive song writer.

love this song.

i've always thought the last lines, and as they made sense to me was

"I bow my head in the morning light and said goodnight I held her hand and I, I kissed her eyes Stumbled down the stairs and hang my self on high And I started for the town line; the front yard i died."

i always felt it fit the song better. i may be wrong, but it's the discrepancy that comes with what we are and what we can me. our potential and how small we really are. this person was an angel... he was a hero... except he died in the front yard. he never left nothing to become nothing.... it's a crying shame i suppose. i've always felt the song was about failure...

Clearly this song is about how hard it is to buy a Christmas tree