Black Balloon

This song is about addiction itself, but more precisely it parallels heroin addiction and love addiction and/or affection kinds of addiction if you get what I mean. Let me break it down... Heroin: Heroin is generally sold in little square pieces of plastic torn from plastic bags or rubber balloons that are tied up at the top resembling a balloon. It's done this way so the dealer can swallow the drugs in the event that he is being investigated or arrested by police officers. No drugs means no incriminating evidence. In most areas, the most common form of heroin tends to be black tar, hence "black balloons".

First Verse: Heroin "Elevator straight into my skull" - The high of heroin takes mere seconds to feels. When you shoot it, it goes straight to your brain real fast. "The escalator rises as it falls" - Since heroin is a sedative, it's anesthetic effects cause the user become numb, weak and nimble; slowly falling into a "relaxed" sleep-like trance as it gets you high. Hence, you fall as you rise... "I swear our jet is crashin' in my mind" - Just a simple metaphor for being high and what's going on in your head at the moment... "You can hold on but I wouldn't waste your time" - You can hold on and try to resist the effect but it's only a matter of time before you fall into the sleep-like trance, so don't waste your time trying to resist.

Chorus: It's about kicking the habit; saying goodbye to the heroin.

2nd Verse: Ironicly, the user keeps coming back to habit even though they tried to kick it, hence the strong addiction of heroin. No the second verse could be taken two ways. On one side, it could be refering to a love obsession of some sort. It's easy to see how this one work as it could parallel the strength of both heroin addiction and love obsession. In my opinion it's still about heroin...

"I've stood in a thousand street scenes, Just around the corner from you" - Different places on the street around the corner from the heroin dealer. If the stereotype holds true, they tend to sell dope on the street corner.

"On the edge of a dream that you have" - That you'll one day kick the habit... "Has anybody ever told you it's not comin' true?" - But you'll never really kick it. Let alone is the habit itself hard as fuck to quit, but you'll always have a chance to relapse and there for, you'll never really be fully away from it.

2nd Chorus: "Farewell my black balloon, let the weather have it's way with you" - This one goes many ways too. Could be about finally getting clean. Could be about letting go of your love obsession for someone. Could also be about just letting giving up on both...

Bonus: From the looks of the band it safe to say they've both had their experiences with heroin if not still do, which is more then likely which would justify the song...