The House That Heaven Built

To me, he's ruined his relationship with this girl that he still loves. The song is him coming to terms with this and wishing her luck for the future.

"When they love you, and they will Tell 'em all they'll love in my shadow And if they try to slow you down Tell 'em all to go to hell"

He wants her to know that no man that comes after will love her quite as much, and their relationship will have lasting effects on both of them. Ultimately he wants her to be happy, and hopes no-one else will slow her down quite as much as he did.

"It's a lifeless life With no fixed address to give But you're not mine to die for anymore So I must live"

He feels he is lost with nothing to live for since the relationship ended, but ends on a positive note. He now has to find someone else to die for.

"Born of a bottle From heaven's hand And now you know And here I am"

This could almost be a reference to alcoholism leading to the downfall, though i may be reading into it too literally. Either way, now she knows and here he is.

Love this track.

The beauty in language and art is that the beholder is empowered to take what is presented and to interpret the meaning based on meaning and experience.

There's a nice catch late in the tune that guides my perception of the song down a slightly different path than the previous comments (which all have great perspectives to share):

"Born of a bottle From heaven's hand And now you know And here I am"

I hear a parent/child interaction taking place for the first time in the child's life, likely at a time where the child is able to emotionally grasp the notion of finding out who their real parent is. Thus, the parent is also feeling the overwhelming power of the newly formed bond in the closing stanza.

The emotional delivery during the entire song is a wonderful way to tell this story.

i love this song. it makes me want to move but also cry at the same time, it has such a great, inspiring, bittersweet energy. i can also deeply relate. i see it as a guy who's relationship has ended, and he still loves the person, he's 'free' now, he has to be, move on, "i must live", but he knows that no other person will match up to that one person, as can be seen in the line, "when they love you, and they will, tell them all they'll love in my shadow", and then at the end of the song comes the slight change to "when they love me, and they will, i'll tell them all they'll love in your shadow" - it's bittersweet because they moved on for unknown reasons but nothing will compare to what they had.

Out of topic, sorry, but what's with the guy flagging and downvoting comments of opinions and interpretations which don't relate to the song being about love? People have their different opinions, and that might be skewed by personal experiences. Not your opinion, downvoting is all right, but flagging them? That's pushing it don't you think?

I think you guys are right on about a past relationship and moving forward from that. However, I had a different take on it at first. I kept noticing the interesting biblical/religious parallels.

The first two versus almost describe a rapture like event and then living in heaven. The chorus could be interpreted as "When they love you, and they will. Tell them all they'll love in My (God's) shadow." That even works for the end when he changes it to, "I'll tell them all they'll love in Your shadow."

"I settled in slowly to this house you call home" could be interpreted as initial hesitance to accept God into his life.

I don't know, though, these dudes don't really seem like the preachy type... but you never know.

these are the only words that matter in this post of mine...THIS SONG IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING...i don't really care what this song means. i mean, the lyrics are great, and are part of it's greatness. but the feeling defiance. staccato guitar. stunted and stuttering reiterations of the same. it stops starts. builds, slows, picks up and it just makes me happy regardless of everything. this is one of those rare songs where i thought it was incredible the first time i heard it and i love it more every time i listen to it. AMAZING. okay. i'll calm down and stop the one song repeated playlist now. anthem. I hope Japandroids become huge because they are what rock music is supposed to be all about.

First, the most recent comment was 5 years ago (today is 10/7/2018), so I may just be typing this to myself much in the same way I sometimes think outloud.

I really enjoy all the different interpretations of this song's meaning. I think that a good song connects with each listener on a very personal level, often for different reasons. And this is a good song. It is played with passion and emotion and definitely feels like it was inspired by something very tangible that Brian experienced. But it is written in a way that touches on universal themes in a way that each of us interprets it in a way that is very personal to us and our experiences. That combination of great songs that feel personal and passionate performances is one reason I've been a big fan of Japandroids.

As far as how I relate to this song, i have a good friend that died earlier this year. Without getting into details, he pretty much drank himself to death in the end. He was a person who lived fully at all times. He had a reputation as a wild man, but he was very intelligent and exceedingly kind. I really got to know him when I was going through the process of losing the person closest to me. In spite of all the people who may have only known him as a wild man, a fun person to party with, the guy who would fiercely champion a band then passed put at the bar, I got to know him as the guy that would drop whatever he was doing the minute I walked in and come engage me when my mind was a million miles away from the people around me. I would come in to get a drink after a rough day and he would make sure he got me smiling and for me talking. He didn't care what people thought of him. He fully lived the way he wanted to and the way he needed to. On the end, I don't know if he knew how loved he was by so many people, but he left a huge hole when he left us.

I loved this song since I first heard Celebration Rock, but it hit me in a new way when we lost him. For me, the song feels like it is partially from his perspective, and partially from the perspective of those of us who loved and lost him. The last verse, in particular, really feels like those first days after he died. We are saying "you're not mine to die for anymore so I must live" in the midst of our confusion and grief. He is the one saying "born of a bottle from Heaven's hand, and now you know and here I am." We are trying to hold on to any part of him that we can knowing we have to let go, and he is telling us that he had to live the way he lived and die the way he died.

That's the beauty of great music; it connects to us in ways we never realized, and it expresses things that can't be expressed by talking. And the Japandroids are great music in many ways. Even when it's sad, they still have us celebrating and singing along at the top of our lungs....

To me, he's ruined his relationship with this girl that he still loves. The song is him coming to terms with this and wishing her luck for the future.

"When they love you, and they will Tell 'em all they'll love in my shadow And if they try to slow you down Tell 'em all to go to hell"

He wants her to know that no man that comes after will love her quite as much, and their relationship will have lasting effects on both of them. Ultimately he wants her to be happy, and hopes no-one else will slow her down quite as much as he did.

"It's a lifeless life With no fixed address to give But you're not mine to die for anymore So I must live"

He feels he is lost with nothing to live for since the relationship ended, but ends on a positive note. He now has to find someone else to die for.

"Born of a bottle From heaven's hand And now you know And here I am"

This could almost be a reference to alcoholism leading to the downfall, though i may be reading into it too literally. Either way, now she knows and here he is.

Love this track.

I think of this as the soundtrack to the soul deep inside of William H. Macy's character in "Magnolia." Were he liberated from torment, this is the song that would come out of his body.

Some lyric corrections:

To blood and breath, FAIR FLESH and bone BLUSH OF OUR BODIES in the heat of the night All day the day after, REDDENING skies