I Thought I Saw Your Face Today

I agree with everyone and I'd just like to add on to what their comments. To me, this song is about a girl who is reminiscing about a boy she loved. They were probably good friends and she had deeper feelings than he did but he considered her just a friend. She's remembering him and a place where they used to hang out together, perhaps in the park, woods, etc. She got her heart broken when he left her for something, someone or somewhere else. She probably thought she was over him as the years passed by but she is reminded of him by familiar places, "but now it's just a monument." Everything that happened between them was written in stone and she can't go back to change it or relive it. She can only look at it from afar with bitterness or nostalgia. I have a feeling that she will move on, but everyone has a special place for that someone who got away. I know I do.

My favorite lines in this song are, "I somehow see what's beautiful In things that are ephemeral I'm my only friend of mine And love is just a piece of time In the world."

I think that is so true because at the end of a day, love is just a piece of time in the world. We pour our hearts out and lose our minds over someone. We try to drag on relationships and try to squeeze out every emotion we can out of our lovers. I think it is more beautiful when you love someone and just things be. Kind of like this song. She loved him and he left and she probably won't see him again, but it's still beautiful. They both shared a connection that was genuine and not forced. Even though it was short-lived, love still goes on for both of them. They probably will remember each other fondly even if nothing worked out between them.

I've interpreted this song slightly different. I think that its about a girl who had a distant crush on a boy who she never really met. They may have had this fleeting moment, but she keeps going over it in her head and has fallen in love with this person.

This song is basically my life. I feel like its about a girl who had feelings for someone and they had some back, but they ended up fading with no relationship developing. And the girl still has all the "what if"s in her mind and cannot stop thinking about this person, even expanding on who that person really is to be a "monument" in her mind. Whenever she sees or thinks she sees this person, she gets butterflies and goes over all the possibilities again but never acting upon them.

I can relate to this perfectly, it feels like she's speaking right through me. I once fell for an exchange student from France, exchanging looks and smiles with him, he was so cute. But we both knew nothing would become of it. We only had three weeks together, so we just enjoyed eachother for the little time we had. I Never really had the courage to express my true feelings because it felt so pointless, but I knew he knew. it was sort of our little secret. We probably won't ever see eachother ever again but when I hear this song, I just can't help but think "What if...", and wonder if his feelings were the same as mine.

I'm actually pretty surprised because my interpretation was more along the lines of a woman innocent to love...she has this fantasy of love- a place that was once her sanctuary, something she had anticipated and was waiting to manifest itself in the body of a real flesh-and-blood boy to her girl, but he never came. As she gets older, she convinces herself that the day when she falls in love will never come, which is where the almost bitter (and of course tragic) tone of the lyrics and her voice come from.

Is this a bit of a stretch? The boy of her dreams (literally) never showed up after years of dreaming...and she's fed up.

I see a complicated person singing this song.

Zooey Deschanel is referencing a book titled "Play It As It Lays" by Joan Didion, which is a very iconic 1970's book about an actress in California. One of the the motifs of the book is her driving her car on the endless "freeways" which this song also refers too.

I'd really recommend the book. This is my favorite She & Him song and after I read the lyrics I love it even more because of this really smart reference.

best song.

This song reminds me of someone I don't want to see anymore, but keep bumping into in the street anyway.

I am my only friend and I.....best fucking verse ever

Sounds like a song about not being able to completely get over someone, even after many years of being apart. Despite what may have happened in the past, there will always be some connection, however faint.