3 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
Amsterdam Says Lyrics
Cars by the water, water that makes this place stand still
Looks like they're thinking, thinking of jumping
I wake to the church bells playing those funky tunes, hey jude
Up in the tower, carillonneurs thumping
I'm trying to love you but you treat me like a hotel
You're coming and going, but you never say where
I'm trying to love you, but I see your heart is elsewhere
Amsterdam says goodnight
I'm dragging my suitcase through Chinatown and the Zeedijk
The racket it's making banging a tourist
Now this is my home,
Though these roots will only ever be so long
It is what it is
I'm trying to love you but you treat me like a hotel
You're coming and going, but you never say where
I'm trying to love you, but I see your heart is elsewhere
Amsterdam says goodnight
I'm trying to love you but you treat me like a hotel
You're coming and going, but you never say where
I'm trying to love you, but I see your heart is elsewhere
Amsterdam says with steel in her voice
"I may seem rude to you but I prefer to hear it straight
And not have to wade through the bullshit between the lines
I know I'm beautiful, and I shouldn't work, but I do
And I can do better than you."
Looks like they're thinking, thinking of jumping
I wake to the church bells playing those funky tunes, hey jude
Up in the tower, carillonneurs thumping
You're coming and going, but you never say where
I'm trying to love you, but I see your heart is elsewhere
Amsterdam says goodnight
The racket it's making banging a tourist
Now this is my home,
Though these roots will only ever be so long
It is what it is
You're coming and going, but you never say where
I'm trying to love you, but I see your heart is elsewhere
Amsterdam says goodnight
You're coming and going, but you never say where
I'm trying to love you, but I see your heart is elsewhere
Amsterdam says with steel in her voice
"I may seem rude to you but I prefer to hear it straight
And not have to wade through the bullshit between the lines
I know I'm beautiful, and I shouldn't work, but I do
And I can do better than you."
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
To put it really simple its about loving a woman who doesn't love you back. Just look at th echorus when he says
"trying to love you but you treat me like a hotel"
which sounds like she just wants a short time with him and just uses him.The last lines sound like him breaking free of that hold she has on him.
"I know I'm beautiful, and I shouldn't work, but I do And I can do better than you"
Really great stuff. Bell X1 do such simple and brilliant acoustic songs, I actually can't understand why they don't do more
As opposed to this song being about a person, it's actually about the city of Amsterdam too.
Paul Noonan, lead singer and lyricist for Bell X1 spent some time living in Amsterdam (where one of his friends was incidentally a carillonneur, hence the reference in this song) with a girlfriend of the time.
This song is about his regretful failure both to settle with his girlfriend, and in the city itself - despite being in love with both of them. It's about alienation, and never feeling quite good enough.
The final verse/chorus sees the city speak back to him;
"I may seem rude to you but I prefer to hear it straight And not have to wade through the bullshit between the lines I know I'm beautiful, and I shouldn't work, but I do And I can do better than you."
Bell X1 have written many beautiful songs but this is my favourite because I can relate to it so personally. There is a melancholic sense of disillusion, rejection and inferiority in the song that is perfect.
I lived in the Netherlands as an expat for three years and at the end I felt like this. You admire the place, you marvel at the way it works in spite of itself, you even start to fall in love with it a little. It smiles at you, lets you in a little, but it doesn't want you to stay, not really. Foreigners come and go, they are part of the fabric of the place but they can never really be a part of it. You will never be good enough. Amsterdam doesn't love you in return. For it you are a "hotel". And so your roots will only grow so long.
I suspect Noonan was in love with a Dutch girl too, which would have amplified the feelings about NL, as it's unusual for a Dutch girl to choose a non-Dutch partner and relationships can be tough. I expect his relationship with the girl paralleled that of his relationship with the city.
@misty11410 Paul's wife, Amy, is Dutch.
@misty11410 Paul's wife, Amy, is Dutch.