Use your intuition, it's all you've got
Keys are rare and there's a thousand locks
Stand in your way
So goes the Gold Age, your tired life

Digging for a way, you cast a spell
Carve a path from all the things they sell
But they don't let go
Just thought you should know
Either way

I know what I know
Would not fill a thimble
So let your mind go (let my mind go)
Straight down the runway
Does one want to
Get more used to
The mall and misery? (The mall and the misery)
The debt mounts, the costs to be alive

Your eyes are burning from the biting cold
If only to learn what you've never been told
There's a real world
And somewhere a good girl lives and breathes

Powdered hope in my callow mind
Ideas stolen in the morning tide
There's a dark time
And this is a dark rhyme to fill your heart

I know what I know
Would not fill a thimble
So let your mind go (let my mind go)
Straight down the runway
Does one want to
Get more used to
The mall and misery? (The mall and the misery)
The debt mounts, the costs to be alive


Lyrics submitted by Konversekid, edited by dabenz560sl, tjdonohue, anzii, carolinadelb, thewrytruth

The Mall & Misery Lyrics as written by James Mercer Brian Joseph Burton

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

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The Mall and Misery song meanings
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  • +4
    General Comment

    It is always amazing to come on here and read the many different meanings people come up with. To me this is the beautiful thing about music, as many can take what they will from it, and it touches them all differently. My interpretation of this song: I believe it is basically about the world as it is today. The people in control feed consumerism to the masses. We are born and bred to buy buy buy. We are walking atm machines for these people. I think this is a defiant statement against that way of life. It is misery when your worth is measured with what you acquire at the mall. Dead mouths it costs to be alive I think is a reference to the debt each one of us will acquire over the course of our lives. It is impossible to escape with the current system. It is designed this way. Remember what it was like to feel? Think about that. When accosted by debt and force fed fear and paranoia to be kept at bay, while 1 percent of the population spends our wealth on 13 houses which never get lived in except for two months a year. Not trying to get too political, but considering Danger Mouse current situation with his record company(google it) and the fact this album leaked without even really allowing the single to get airplay leads me to believe that this is the meaning behind this song. It does cost to be alive. Should it? Where did the romance go? Where did feelings go? I don't like to feel like I'm doomed before I even got started. This is an amazing song, and to me it is a defiant statement against the way things are and possibly an attempt to get people to think. Does one really want to get more used to the mall and the misery. Thank you Broken Bells. Peace

    TommyCreedboion April 10, 2010   Link

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