Collect Call

I absolutely love how this song starts.

"If the fire's out baby How you gonna keep me warm"

Reminds me of past relationships

"I'm a lazy dancer When you move I move with you" Encouragement. Is like the singer encourages everyone to potentially be happy :))) "If somebody's got soul YOU gotta make the move"

And the name of the song : Collect Call - telephone call in which the calling party wants to place a call at the called party's expense. The whole song is asking (almost begging,actually) to be loved :)) the sweetest thing for my ears.

This relates to my life right now...the flame is out it needs to be rekindled but it needs someoone to do so,so she's waiting on him, and its up to him to try and fix it bc she's done all she can, she knows that them pretending is a lie and she wants the love to still be true, she is done with the goodbyes and justs want a place they xan have ( lovewise) that makes their wishes come true that makes everything work. S:e wants to be close again, and by saying she's a lazy dancer means she'll go along with him bc its comfortable...its easier for them not to leave eachother even tho the love is gone. If somebodys going through love or the same experience make a move to make it work try to put actions forth so it won't end. That's just how I percieve it tobe

i always link songs to stuff thats happened to me.. so this is how i see it...

she's been in a relationship that has ended (the fires out) but there still seeing each other although it means nothing to him.. "I know it's a lie I want it to be true" she still loves him and wishes that he wants the same thing. she wishes that she could stay with him and doesn't want to let go of there past relationship. this is one of my favourite metric songs. :)

I really enjoy this song mostly because I feel that it connects up with past events in my life. There's just something about it that's magical.

Anyways...

"If the fire's out baby How you gonna keep me warm Supposing you let me With the door wide open no one can leave"

The idea here seems to be that if the love between two people is gone, how is the singer going to continue going on. Also both people are at an impasse because neither can move or act.

"I know it's a lie I want it to be true The rest of the ride is riding on you"

My favourite part of the song. The singer has given his/her heart to the other person and now "the rest of the ride is riding" on them and thier actions. It's "I've done all I can do, your turn" type of idea.

"Over goodbyes we'll buy some place For wishing you could Keep me closer I'm a lazy dancer When you move I move with you"

I lumped the last line it to make grammatical sense. The singer wants to rekindle the lost flame of the relationship even though (s)he knows that everything is lost. The last two lines have me stumped though.

"If somebody's got soul You gotta make them move Make them move"

Another tricky one to get. I think it's more of a warning to other people not to let the same thing happen. Don't let go of your one love because then life isn't worth living anymore.

That's my stab at this song. Either way, it's my favourite song on "Fantasies".

I agree with watch's interpretation, well at least that's what I get from it...

i think this song is basically about wantind someone. wanting them more than they ever wanted you. and you know that they dont give a fuck. but you dont care. or just turn a blind eye. and the part about being a lazy dancer is an anology for not caring about what happens in your life as long as you can be near to who you care about most.

It's a love gone stale.

"If the fire's out baby, how you gonna keep me warm?" "I know it's a lie, I want it to be true."

This makes me think of a relationship that has gone on so long it's become more of a routine than anything. These two people are in a relationship solely because they've been in it for so long, being out of it just wouldn't make sense, but they've lost the passion. This song, to me, is one of them finally admitting it.

Emily seems to often express a fairly depressed persona in her songs, along with a sentimental nature, a belief in her dreams. Hell, the album is called 'fantasies'..

Sick Muse contains the lines

'Watch out, cupid struck me with a sickness'. 'Everybody just wanna fall in love'.

She recognises that her idea of love is a bit of a fantasy. Here I think she is confounded by her inability to instigate and feed the relationship. Bear these lines from 'Twilight Galaxy' in mind;

'Did I ask you For attention When affection Is what I need

Thinking sorrow was perfection I would wallow

Till you told me There's no glitter in the gutter There's no twilight galaxy'

Blindness is my end to the album (forget Stadium Love, it sucks and sounds like an afterthought to pad out the album. Along with countless other Emily lyrics, it describes her as the passionate hero in the moment of crisis. Her dramatic, passionate side. I think Collect Call shows us the flip side.

The lyrics here are a bit confusing in places but here goes.

If the fire is out - If the heat of the relationship is at an ebb How you going to keep me warm? (She can't keep herself warm. And maybe the passion is all she's any good at. Maybe she struggles to nurture emotional closeness in the everyday)

Supposing you let me

(I can't figure this out in relation to the lyrics before or after. I used to believe she sang 'left me').

With the door wide open, no-body can leave

(which at this point runs into...)

I know it's a lie, I want it to be true

(Is this a recognition of a perverted emotional dynamic? She acts passive and uncaring, leaving the door wide open for the SO to leave, but in her heart it's actually a plea for him not to... a way to be gratified by his staying)

The rest of the ride, is riding on you

(for the clearest statement of the theme, her passive stance)

Over goodbyes we'll buy some place For wishing you could

(I'll come back to this)

Keep me closer I'm a lazy dancer. When you move, I move with you

(she desires the closeness of a relationship built on more, but like a lazy dancer she can't lead, only follow him...also, move can mean to move emotionally, so maybe she is feeling numb to herself, and feels through the proxy of his emotions)

If somebodies got soul... You gotta make them move.

(Soul is such a cop-out word in lyrics! It could mean almost anything. Let's say it means someone has deep feelings. This is not incompatible with being numb on a day to day basis. In fact we hear her talk about her perception of herself as deep and heartfelt through this album and the preceeding one, often with humour and irony. But is she talking about herself here? Or her SO? It's unclear, so this could be a recognition that seizing the moment, taking the initiative, provoking emotions in the other, is essential. Either she is begging her SO to do this, which would be pretty self-pitying, or she is asking herself to step up. The final possibility is that she is talking about being resigned to the possibility of one of them finding another lover... she'd understand if it was him? or is she saying, if it happened to me, I would have to act on it.... which would maybe explain her passive stance.. leaving the door open)

I know it's a lie, I want it to be true.

(now things are really getting ambiguous. She could be saying that she knows it's not on him to make up the ground. She could be saying the whole 'soul' thing is a front, a self-delusion. She could even be saying the whole relationship is the lie she wants to be true, that the fire is out and she's not feeling it anymore, that the dependence on passion reveals the lack of true closeness... she has a dream where the other person will make up for her lack of emotional intimacy, but she knows she is kidding herself)

Over goodbyes (how fatalistic is that? Idoes she realise it's just a matter of time?)

we'll buy some place

For wishing you could keep me closer.......

(ahh... the act of saying goodbye may 'buy the space' for the dream to be reborn. at the moment where you look at the end of the relationship you start to feel what you would lose. The sense of loss is shared in that moment. Maybe this brings her the emotional connection she was looking for the whole time.)

For wishing you could Keep me closer....

(and in that closeness, that moment of sentiment and drama, the relationship is reborn...her numbness is forgotten, she has even managed to expose her fragility... but the melancholic, self-pitying 'wish', the lie, is not addressed, but it's all she muster, and it will keep things going. And so, I believe, the song is about a pattern she knows will repeat, The passion of the dream, followed by the emptiness afterwards, followed by her emotional withdrawal... and so on)

I think collect call is a great title. It's where you instigate communication without having to pay the price.

Emily has funny motifs. Fire, goodbyes, moving.. The speaker of this song reminds me of Butcher's, though this has a slightly less negative description of whomever the speaker is talking to. Giving someone else the power of the relationship, perhaps in an attempt to bring about peace or at least a more palpable perception of positive feelings.

I'm interested in how the bridge ("I know it's a lie..) is meant to interact with the "Somebody's got soul" part of the song. Because it completely negates the "make the move" concept, and instead gives into the passive nature that is upheld in the chorus and first verse. This is a pretty lame stab at the song, but I don't see much to go off of yet. But it sure is pretty.