High rise, veins of the avenue
Bright eyes and subtle variations of blue
Everywhere is balanced there like a rainbow above you

Street lights glisten on the boulevard
And cold nights make staying alert so hard
For heaven's sake, keep me awake so I won't be caught off guard
Clearly I am a passerby but I'll find a place to stay
Dear pacific day, won't you take me away?

Small town hearts of the New Year
Brought down by gravity, crystal clear
City fog and brave dialogue converge on the frontier

Make haste, I feel your heartbeat
With new taste for speed, out on the street
Find a road to a humble abode where both of our routes meet
The silver sound is all around and the colors fall like snow
The feeling of letting go, I guess we'll never know

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I'll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins
Cause your heart has a lack of color and we should've known
That we'd grow up sooner or later cause we wasted all our free time alone

Your nerves gather with the altitude
Exhale the stress so you don't come unglued
Somewhere there is a happy affair, a ghost of a good mood
Wide eyed, panic on the getaway
The high tide could take me so far away
VCR's and motorcars unite on the Seventh Day
A popular gauge will measure the rage of the new Post-Modern Age
Cause somewhere along the line all the decades align

We were the crashing whitecaps
On the ocean
And what lovely seaside holiday, away
A palm tree in Christmas lights
My emotion
Struck a sparkling tone like a xylophone
As we spent the day alone

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I'll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins
Cause your heart has a lack of color and we should've known
That we'd grow up sooner or later 'cause we wasted all our free time alone


Lyrics submitted by AbsolutionAgent_gMs, edited by pjunk

Rainbow Veins Lyrics as written by Adam R. Young

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Rainbow Veins song meanings
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  • +2
    General Comment

    This is my favorite by Owl City.

    I doubt this song has anything to do with drugs, its just a metaphor.

    unggoyon July 09, 2009   Link

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