This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Are you still in love with me
Like the way you used to be or is it changing?
Does it deepen over time like the river
That is winding through the Canyon?
Are you still in love with her?
Do you remember how you were before the sorrow?
Are you closer for the tears
Or has the weight of all the years left you hollow?
Are we strangers now?
Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show?
Are we strangers now
Like rock and roll and the radio?
Like rock and roll and radio
I can see you lyin' there
Tying ribbons in your hair and pullin' faces
I can feel your hand in mine
Though were living separate lives in separate places
Are we strangers now?
Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show?
Are we strangers now?
Like rock and roll and the radio?
Like rock and roll and radio
All these white lies hanging like flies on the wall
Hard wired, road tired
Counting curtain calls and waiting
Waiting for the axe to fall
Are you still in love with me
Like the way you used to be or is it changing?
Does it deepen over time, like the river
That is winding through the Canyon?
Are we strangers now?
Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show?
Are we strangers now?
Like rock and roll and the radio?
Like rock and roll and radio
Like the way you used to be or is it changing?
Does it deepen over time like the river
That is winding through the Canyon?
Are you still in love with her?
Do you remember how you were before the sorrow?
Are you closer for the tears
Or has the weight of all the years left you hollow?
Are we strangers now?
Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show?
Are we strangers now
Like rock and roll and the radio?
Like rock and roll and radio
I can see you lyin' there
Tying ribbons in your hair and pullin' faces
I can feel your hand in mine
Though were living separate lives in separate places
Are we strangers now?
Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show?
Are we strangers now?
Like rock and roll and the radio?
Like rock and roll and radio
All these white lies hanging like flies on the wall
Hard wired, road tired
Counting curtain calls and waiting
Waiting for the axe to fall
Are you still in love with me
Like the way you used to be or is it changing?
Does it deepen over time, like the river
That is winding through the Canyon?
Are we strangers now?
Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show?
Are we strangers now?
Like rock and roll and the radio?
Like rock and roll and radio
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Pretty straight forward. In a relationship where it feels as if they may have grown apart. Are we strangers now? Like rock n roll and the radio. Ray writes brilliant lyrics and melodies. God Willin' And The Creek Don't Rise is the album of 2010.
This song is brilliant. I agree it's pretty straight forward, I'd just love to know his intention with the comparisons he draws in the lines of the chorus.
Specifically...
"Are we strangers now? Like the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show? Like Rock and Roll and the Radio"
Does the phrasing mean how a Ziegfeld Gal is a stranger TO a Vaudeville show (Ziegfeld dancers came before the days of Vaudeville) and then "Rock and Roll" being a stranger to "Radio" - because you essentially can't hear "rock and roll" on the radio we have in today's world? Does each reference have to do with being a stranger to the other reference in the same line OR is he referring to the collective nostalgic loss of older eras and times gone by, etc. like rock and roll and the radio... (the two being looped into one thing).
I know this is really specific - but if anyone else has any insight. I'd love to know what you think. =)
I can't claim to know Ray but love his music so have read a bit about him. He is happily married so maybe this song isn't about a lost partner. To me this song is much deeper and more heart breaking as I think he is singing about his father. This next bit is from a biography website... <br /> <br /> "When LaMontagne was a child, his mother left his musician father, while his father was on tour, and moved him and his siblings up North. His father had no contact with LaMontagne and for years had no knowledge of his whereabouts. Because of the stories told to LaMontagne about his father, LaMontagne refrained from most musical activity, instead spending much of his time reading fantasy novels in the forest. His mother moved him and his five siblings to wherever she could find work, so it was difficult for LaMontagne to become friends with other children."<br /> <br /> This is possibly the most beautiful and intimate song I have ever heard.
This took some digging. it does mean that the Ziegfield Gal does miss vaudeville. Ray watched a movie called The Great Ziegfield (1936) where Florenz Ziegfield Jr creates a show called the Ziegfield follies. There are quite a few girls that Flo steals away from vaudeville to put in his show that "glorifies" women. The eventually begin to hate working for Flo and miss the days of working in vaudeville shows.
I can't claim to know Ray but love his music so have read a bit about him. He is happily married so maybe this song isn't about a lost partner. To me this song is much deeper and more heart breaking as I think he is singing about his father. This next bit is from a biography website...
"When LaMontagne was a child, his mother left his musician father, while his father was on tour, and moved him and his siblings up North. His father had no contact with LaMontagne and for years had no knowledge of his whereabouts. Because of the stories told to LaMontagne about his father, LaMontagne refrained from most musical activity, instead spending much of his time reading fantasy novels in the forest. His mother moved him and his five siblings to wherever she could find work, so it was difficult for LaMontagne to become friends with other children."
This is possibly the most beautiful and intimate song I have ever heard.
Ray's lyrics touch me in a way no other artist does. The song actually made me reflect on my own relationship the first time I heard it.. Beautiful song, very emotive.
this song describes my current situation spot on. I am currently still trying to get over a very sad break-up that took place over 2 years ago. 8 years together with him.... and now I know nothing about him-... only that he has traveled extensively...and lost touch? we did. Interesting lyrics...
"Are we strangers now? Like Rock and Roll and the Radio?"
-One thing that always brought us together was music. I later found out that he saw Ray...perform the same week as me-just in a different State (ironic)
"I can see you lyin' there, tying ribbons in your hair And pullin' faces. I can feel your hand in mine, though we're living separate lives In separate places."
Sad....but unleashes pain that comes from the soul....lost love, unrequited love.
What is meant by the term "pulling faces"? I am not familiar with the term, but I think it might mean that she was tying ribbons in her hair and making funny faces - perhaps in bed with him in happier times or in a silly home video they made. Seems to make sense... <br /> <br /> It took me a while, but I like the analogy of their relationship being like Rock and Roll and Radio - just not being on the same page. Rock and Roll has become more about the road - the performances and the grass roots experience of live music, and radio is more and more fragmented. Hard to find a niche. Just like two people trying to live their lives together as though they are singing the same song for an extended period of time.<br /> <br /> The line that says "are we strangers now?" is haunting. Even though they are physically apart, she will always be a part of him. Not really knowing where she is or what she's feeling, but it's almost like he can still talk to her. It's like there has not been a formal split. He just hit the road and they drifted apart.
This might be a stretch, but I don't think the voice changes in this song. When he asks "are you still in love with her?" who would "he" be asking? It sounds like he might have been in a relationship with a woman who had bisexual tendencies, and the woman started down a road of depression "before the sorrow." The rest of the song sounds like "he" knows the relationship will eventually end "axe to fall." I would only imagine this scenario because it happened to me..
On second thought, I meant person, not voice about the "you" in the lyrics. The more I listen to various live versions of this song the more the "white lies" part seems to sneak in, especially volume-wise, which means an emphasis on it, at least to the performer/songwriter. Several interviews say that his songs are not autobiographical, but an intuitive person would beg to differ. If he had watched an old black and white film about vaudeville and written a love story about the players in the film it wouldn't make sense... I think this song is personal no matter what anyone else thinks.
What is the Ziegfeld Gal and the Vaudeville show? I'm English, and I've never heard of it, I'm guessing it's a radio show in the USA?
Actually, after hearing this song, i did research on the subject, as i like to know the origination of the writing...(i write a lot :) Apparently, the Ziegfeld gal did appear in the Vaudeville show (which was more of a traveling circus of sorts, that solicited many "items," for example, freak shows, dancing girls (Ziegfeld gals) and trickeries of sort. Apparently, the last remaining Ziegfeld gals were to become dancers in New York (some say the begginings of the Rocketeers, not really sure...). Anyhow, the reference is meant that if one is growing old, or not "good enough," they are cast out from the opportunity, or the show. The reference in this song I believe, is that both the Ziegfeld gal and the Vaudeville show are in a relationship of<br /> sadness, of being "let down," and cast out. Also, "rock and roll and the radio" sends the same message..."rock n roll" was such an outbreaker, especially in the 50's, and to be played on the radio was such a great breakthrough for modern society at the time, considering all of the conotations. Anyhow, I think that the seperation of both are relevant. Like the breaking of bones, actually. They are both painful, in self-respective ways. (Although I am not sad "rock and roll" is dying, b/c today it is not the same as it once was ....otherwise we would not have Ray :) Anyhow, that is just my opinion, plus facts i have read. Hope this helps!<br />
Each person imparts their own meaning to a song and choose the way they hear the song...Ray even hints at this in many interviews. He doesnt like talking about the song meanings...he thinks people knowing why he wrote a song is like learning the reality to a magic trick...it spoils it. But this is how I see it...
To me it speaks volumes to my life at the moment. I grew so close to someone...we moved apart...she married someone else, but is in a terribly unhealthy relationship, but I think she cant remember what life was like before the constant sorrow from the present relationship. Whether their constant sorrow has made them closer or if she is a shell of the person she could be because of the relationship. And I often find myself wondering if she still loves her or me.
One of my favorite songs and every single line to me is my life right now...beautiful(but sad).
I completely agree with sunnysides comments, For me this stunning heart wrenching piece of work is about the Strain on a marriage after losing a young daughter. As some of the lyrics have no place In the song if this were not the case, I remember the first time I heard this song on a live TV show with Ray and David gray sitting on stool taking turns singing songs and it just blew me away, I’ve been hooked on his music ever since, My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing him live in Newcastle, England and he and his band were outstanding. What a talent
This song is so beautiful. To me it feels like more than just growing apart. Like maybe they lost a child, a little girl. Sometimes I get that feeling when I'm listening to it.
@sunnyshine579
I agree with you Sunnyshine579; this song is much more than a simple breakup of lovers:<br /> <br /> "Are you still in love with her, like the way you used to be, before the sorrow." <br /> <br /> I think of the song now as former lovers who lost a child, and due to the emotions and pain of that heartache, split apart with him still suffering from both the loss of child and wife/lover.<br /> <br /> And like the Zeigfeld gal, he is, "Hard wired, road tired.", and looking toward the end of his own life; "Counting curtain calls, waiting for the axe to fall."<br /> <br /> I have learned to play and sing it and thinking of your explanation really brings out the depth of the emotions of both heartache and loss, adding so much to this beautiful song. Thank you.<br />