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Darkness Descends Lyrics
You're holding bits of styrofoam
With your face painted on to your friends
You listen to them whine and moan
About everything you can't understand
Can I just say I don't feel the light,
But darkness descends once more into my life
And suddenly we're all alone
In silence so I take a step away
I look up to the falling snow
As it makes its home upon my face
Well I wouldn't want to ruin something I couldn't save
The gap will keep us safe, the gap will keep us safe
Step away, get me when I'm down
And suddenly I'm 5 years old
And I'm just so cold I want to cry
I haul up on my gentlemen
Who have always been there in hard times
They're just not like that man of mine
Who visits me from time to time
My love, I treasure you
I hear that summer's coming back
So I stretch out my back and travel on
The winter though it darkens me
It is pure and clean and all I want
I'll apologise to the ones I love
For leaving them when the sun comes up
Too bright for me, darkness descends
Oh well I'm not well again and once more darkness it descends
The ground is falling under me
And I can't find the means to leave
Convinced that I am going mad
Oh I bury my head into his hands
So sure that I am losing faith
Oh I clear a space in his father's land
You deal with god far too young,
Before you know it your life has run away
With your face painted on to your friends
You listen to them whine and moan
About everything you can't understand
Can I just say I don't feel the light,
But darkness descends once more into my life
In silence so I take a step away
I look up to the falling snow
As it makes its home upon my face
Well I wouldn't want to ruin something I couldn't save
The gap will keep us safe, the gap will keep us safe
And I'm just so cold I want to cry
I haul up on my gentlemen
Who have always been there in hard times
They're just not like that man of mine
Who visits me from time to time
So I stretch out my back and travel on
The winter though it darkens me
It is pure and clean and all I want
I'll apologise to the ones I love
For leaving them when the sun comes up
Oh well I'm not well again and once more darkness it descends
The ground is falling under me
And I can't find the means to leave
Oh I bury my head into his hands
So sure that I am losing faith
Oh I clear a space in his father's land
You deal with god far too young,
Before you know it your life has run away
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I'm not sure why, but this song was always one of the first that really stood out for me on this album. I think it is true that part of the beauty of Laura Marling's songs is that you can interpret them in your own way. What I love about this song is that the tune is actually quite uplifting, but the lyrics aren't. The contrast is pretty cool.
I think this song illustrates a sinking into depression (and it just so happens that at this time it is the summer, the opposite of seasonal affective disorder whereby you get depressed in winter). I think when you're depressed in the summer, the sunshine just annoys you. Darkness descending I don't think is literal, just a metaphor for depression/madness.
I also feel that this is about a relationship falling apart and the confusion that comes with it. What came first, the depression or the falling apart of the relationship i'm not sure. I think that when she talks about being cold and 5 years old, that is to emphasise how vulnerable she feels. I also that her lover may be far away from her at the moment and may not understand what she is going through.
I think the last 2 lines are trying to lift the mood up by kind of just saying, there's no point dwelling on things that may seem big at the time, but in the long term they're not so just get on with your life.
i think that, this song is about how it feels to go 'insane'. Or the feeling of being 'insane'.
Also the music that accompanies Marling's superb lyrics in this song to me represent a form of 'madness'.
But as always with Laura's songs, we dont really know what her intentions were when writing this song XD
i think this song is brilliant on so many levels. so much packed into one song... it's such an experience.
I love this song so very much...
I get the feeling that this song is about a woman who finds herself falling in love, but who isn't willing to commit yet. Possibly out of fear of ruining both their lives ("Well I wouldn't want to ruin something I couldn't save/ The gap will keep us safe, the gap will keep us safe"). So she leaves her family and tries to make her own life for herself ("I'll apologise to the ones I love/ For leaving them when the sun comes up"). Then it seems as if she is going mad, possibly a connection between falling in love and going insane, and finds herself back with the one she loves ("Convinced that I am going mad/ Oh I bury my head into his hands"). But she's still not sure of herself even when she's "clearing a space in his father's land".
I kind of think it's about Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Or at least it could be construed that way IMO.