In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
We were born without time, nameless in the arms
Of a mother, a father and God
When the world would wait for us, a thousand years in the crush
Of our eyes, fearless and awed
Quietly we'd fade in to sleep, with nothing on our minds
Then we longed to be loved, in the rush we'd become
Some things we thought we'd never be
We were surprised by how hard, left wary and scarred
From the nights spent feeling incomplete
And all those evenings swearing at the sky, wishing for more time
All the promises we broke when we tried, just wasting all our time
We grow old all at once, and it comes like a punch
In the gut, in the back, in the face
When it seems someone's lied and our parents have died
And we hold on to each other in their place
And I feel the water rising around us, and maybe that's okay
Yeah I feel the world changing all at once, I guess it will be okay
Then we all had one hope, there was someone looking down
To return our bodies to each other, and the ground
Of a mother, a father and God
When the world would wait for us, a thousand years in the crush
Of our eyes, fearless and awed
Quietly we'd fade in to sleep, with nothing on our minds
Then we longed to be loved, in the rush we'd become
Some things we thought we'd never be
We were surprised by how hard, left wary and scarred
From the nights spent feeling incomplete
And all those evenings swearing at the sky, wishing for more time
All the promises we broke when we tried, just wasting all our time
We grow old all at once, and it comes like a punch
In the gut, in the back, in the face
When it seems someone's lied and our parents have died
And we hold on to each other in their place
And I feel the water rising around us, and maybe that's okay
Yeah I feel the world changing all at once, I guess it will be okay
Then we all had one hope, there was someone looking down
To return our bodies to each other, and the ground
Lyrics submitted by IckyThumpz
All At Once Lyrics as written by Mikel Frans Jollett
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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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"
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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
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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I don't think it's necessarily about sex. It's about wanting to start the day with some love and affection. Maybe a warm cuddle. I'm not alone in interpreting it that way! For example:
"'Just a Little Lovin’ is a timeless country song originally recorded by Eddy Arnold in 1954. The song, written by Eddie Miller and Jimmy Campbell, explores the delicate nuances of love and showcases Arnold’s emotive vocals. It delves into the universal theme of love and how even the smallest gesture of affection can have a profound impact on our lives." https://oldtimemusic.com/the-meaning-behind-the-song-just-a-little-lovin-by-eddy-arnold/
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There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
This is an excerpt from an interview with Mikel Jollett to Spinner UK:
Mortality and sudden changes in life inform much of Los Angeles indie rock group The Airborne Toxic Event's second album and the title track finds frontman Mikel Jollett singing about how "our parents have died, and we hold on to each other in their place." He explained to Spinner UK why he titled the album after this track: "A lot of the songs seem to be centering around the theme of how quickly life turns on these events that happen. There's this idea of evolution and incremental change, but for the most part, we really have this punctuated equilibrium. You have your life and then some event happens to you and it changes you in some important way.
I had a lot of family members pass away in the past couple years, since the last record came about: three grandparents, plus my uncle. You start to see your life from a long view and some of the things that maybe seemed really important before don't seem quite as important, and some of the things that you didn't think were as important seem way more important. The birth of a child, the death of a parent, the financial meltdown - it changes things very, very quickly. Suddenly everything is different. A lot of the songs are dealing with that theme in different ways. So, we figured it made sense to call the record that."