The Balcony

First a line by line [interpretation], written as if in a way substituting the lyrics. Secondly an overall interpretation adding more depth and thorough explanation.

So your mouth tastes like sunshine [Your kisses are so sweet] Baby but your eyes Are all cool [but your eyes reveal that you’re distant] Buried in my arms [as I hold you tight] And the breeze takes us deeper and further into [and this moment now, it pushes us further towards] The heart of the moment that is gone [feeling precisely what’s been lost between us] And the scent of your heartache [and your feelings of heartache] Baby and the taste Of your blood Run within me [and your passion, they both feel like they’re my own] And there are red flowers in your spit [and you’re very passionate] When you enter my mouth [when we make love] Under the bed [under the bed] Down on the floor [down on the floor] So take me under the floorboards [So make me lose myself in that moment] I would love to feel like wood [I would love to feel strong again] And take me back to the retards [and take me back to the time when stupid romantic love felt real] 'Cause this world just makes me sick [because now the whole world just sickens me] There are colours in the air [All is colorful wonder] When I fall to the ground [when I fall in love] How we’d love to fall more often [How we’d all love to fall in love more often] There’s a band in our cellar [Our life has its own background music] Baby and they’re playing a song [and that song now] Of the drunks in the street [is a dysfunctional disharmony] And I can hear when they’re playing their lovesong [and sometimes it turns into a sweet love song] 'Cause the kids In the yards Stop playing with their toys [and we both notice and stop just going through the motions] So take me under the schoolyard [So take me way back to the beginning] There are kids there who got lost [to before we lost our innocence] Their mouths all shouting asphalt [Now we’re just yelling at each other] And the bodies torn apart [and we’re broken inside] There are colours in the air [All is colorful wonder] When I fall to the ground [when I fall in love] I can sense a world of heartache [I can sense a coming world full of heartache] But I love the sound [but I love the sound] Of your hair when it falls down [of your hair when it falls down] From the pillow late at night [from the pillow late at night] On the brink of illusion [I’m on the brink of believing the illusion of love] It’s the devil in my eyes [It is the devil inside of me] Waiting for the moment to kill me inside [just waiting for the right moment to kill me inside with disillusionment] How we’d love to die more often [How we’d love to more often feel like dying wouldn’t even matter] So, take my hands love [So please love, reach out to me] There is a burst inside our minds [There’s an explosion of emotions within us] Oh, feel my hands love [Oh, love, please touch me] 'Cause I'm numb from the neck down [‘cause I need you to awaken what our past troubles have now made numb] And there is fire love [and there is fiery passion engulfing us] On the balcony right here [just as we stand here right now, looking at the world outside] And I can see our bodies burning but sense no fear [and I can see us getting incinerated by that passion but sense no fear in either of us] And your mouth tastes like sunshine [and your kisses are so sweet] Baby but your eyes Are all cool [but your eyes reveal that you’re distant] Buried in my arms [as I hold you tight] And everything matters [and everything means something] For seconds we fall [during the seconds while we fall] To the floor [to floor]

INTERPRETATION: The song is about a couple that we are passionately in love but have lost the original romance due to conflicts. They have hurt each other and keep doing so, but despite those original loving feelings and the closeness having died, there is still a carnal passion, which gives flashbacks to when it was new and sweet. “Under the floorboards” means deeper than the floor they make love on, as in deeper into the feeling of the moment than just the carnal part. To feel strong like wood instead of weak. “Take me back to the retards” means take me back to the time when I, which now seems retarded to him, believed in “true love”. The retards bit also shows that he is not at all convinced that believing in true love is not just believing in a stupid illusion. His life now just feels sickly pointless with such love, and he desperately wants to believe once more and assumes that we all want to be true believers in love and fall in love. The band (in our cellar, as in their own personal band, present at all times) is a metaphor for how their relationship is going. Drunks in the street represents the disfunction in their relationship. Drunks in the street are loud and reckless, as are the two of them – most of the time. “Playing their love song” means that at times the relationship briefly seems rosy again. They both notice and possibly also gets noticed by others around them like their neighbors, friends, or family. “…take me under the schoolyard”. The under bit is like the “under the floorboards” bit, as in deeper into it. The schoolyard represents the now seemingly distant past. Kids getting lost is the two of them losing their way. Shouting asphalt is them spewing harsh words to each other and fighting. Bodies torn apart means they have wounded each other very deeply.
The hair on the pillow means noticing tiny little odd and sweet things as one might do when deeply in love, especially in the beginning of a relationship. Read the lyrics from verse 1 and 2 of “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.” by Simon & Garfunkel to get exactly what I mean and believe me, the band knows this song well. There are so many similarities between their music and Simon & Garfunkel’s music (and that is a great thing) and anyone familiar with both bands know what I am talking about. Lying in bed, watching her sleep, he is aware of the all too real risk of further heartbreak. He starts to feel romantic optimism once more. The devil represents the part of him that probably knows better yet still sets him up for more heartache. The balcony represents them standing outside, looking out over the city, over others and them living their lives and in gazing into the distance, imagining their future together.