Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Moving is breathing and breathing is life
Stopping is dying
You'll be alright
Life is a hammer waiting to drop
Drifting the shallows and the rowing won't stop
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Can't see the sky, nothing's on the horizon
Can't feel my hands and the water keeps risin'
Can't fall asleep 'cause I wake up dead
I just keep polling, I just keep rowing
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Rowing is living and living is hard
But living beats losing all that we are
All that we know of, and all that we feel
All we remember, imagine the real
All we remember, imagine the real
Hey
I heard an echo but the answer had changed
From the word I remembered
That I started out sayin'
Living is cheating if you're not pulling oars
The current is leaving
I'll get mine
You get yours
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Hey
Rowing is bleeding, bleeding is breathing
Breathing is feeling, running, and freezing
We're getting dirty but I started out clean
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on polling and
Keep on polling and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing
Keep on rowing
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Moving is breathing and breathing is life
Stopping is dying
You'll be alright
Life is a hammer waiting to drop
Drifting the shallows and the rowing won't stop
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Can't see the sky, nothing's on the horizon
Can't feel my hands and the water keeps risin'
Can't fall asleep 'cause I wake up dead
I just keep polling, I just keep rowing
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Rowing is living and living is hard
But living beats losing all that we are
All that we know of, and all that we feel
All we remember, imagine the real
All we remember, imagine the real
Hey
I heard an echo but the answer had changed
From the word I remembered
That I started out sayin'
Living is cheating if you're not pulling oars
The current is leaving
I'll get mine
You get yours
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Hey
Rowing is bleeding, bleeding is breathing
Breathing is feeling, running, and freezing
We're getting dirty but I started out clean
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on polling and
Keep on polling and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing and
Keep on rowing
Keep on rowing
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on polling, gotta row
Lyrics submitted by SongMeanings, edited by Nikk12, Mellow_Harsher, trinity_tragedy
Rowing Lyrics as written by Chris Cornell Benedict Shepherd Hunter
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing, Hipgnosis Songs Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
No Surprises
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Punchline
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Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Plastic Bag
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
The deceptively monotonous, murky bass-driven nature of the track makes it seem like it would really fit well on the second half of Down on the Upside.