Mt. Washington

I always assumed it was a sad song about a former lover. Especially after reading the lyrics (the part about the "lazy summer goddess" was hard for me to hear on my stupid laptop speakers) it seems like they're haunted by their lover's memory ("face stained in the ceiling", as in, you see their face staring at the ceiling at night). They're trying to dig up and kill the memories or feelings they had for this person, but you can't kill love (especially summer love? Or at least, I'm assuming it's a summer thing). So at the moment, they've found an escape or a way to not think about this person. But that's just what it means to me.

Holy fuck this song is beautiful. I think this song is both loving and sweet and cold and sad at the same time.... To me, it's about a lover that he still loves, but he doesn't need in his life right now. You can read it as being a very sad song, that he doesn't NEED to see this person, but the "right now" is genius.....implying that he will want to or HAVE to see this person some time in the future.

But that's just like...my interpretation, man.

A sadder interpretation of the song....It's someone who normally has to see that he really doesn't like to see....maybe a family member, a parent, that he really clashes with, and he is relieved that he doesn't have to see them.

But i see it much more as a person that he is in a long-distance relationship with. He loves this person, but that person is not the only person in his life. Maybe a lover back home that he's left while he's on tour.

I'm not really sure what this song is about, but whatever Taylor is thinking while he's singing, it's fucking beautiful. The part "face stained in the ceiling, why does it keep saying", haunts me. It's like, at night, when you can't sleep, when your mind won't stop long enough for your body to rest. And that one person is on your mind, just always there, stained into your minds ceiling. I just love it. Local Natives are my absolute favorite band.

I think the singer is just getting over a break up. As he lays at night missing his ex lover, he "sees" his ex lovers face on the ceiling. But he knows that his ex lover isn't looking at the ceiling and seeing him too. Hence why he's saying the face says "I don't have to see you right now."

I've recently had a situation where my best friend and I realized we had feelings for each other, and we were sort of dating for a very short time until he decided he wasn't ready to start a relationship. I was really sad, but I understood, especially with how his last relationship ended (not very well.) What bothers me now is that he's started ignoring me, literally not looking me in the eye... pretending I'm not there. He was the first person I ever opened up to and he matters so much to me, so seeing how easily he closes up to me is honestly really painful. At first, I thought I could close the gap by making an effort to keep talking to him, but I've decided that if he wants to talk to me he will hopefully.

Of course, that experience affects how I interpret the song. I understand seeing his face in the ceiling at night, imagining all the moments he held me close to him and the comfort I felt then. I think about how "I don't have to see [him] right now" and how he's essentially saying the same thing. Then it goes to how we're trying to bury something that won't die. We're trying to suppress our feelings for each other, to put them underground. We refuse to let them live in the light, so they continue to live, just underground. I like how the song says that we could wash the dirt off of our hands and basically let it live in the light. The lazy summer goddess part makes me think of the person he's referring to being lazy and not trying to make this relationship work, but that he still admires his love and finds them graceful. I also like how it shows that his lover still has influence over him like a Goddess, but in a very subdued yet frustrated way that follows the nature of the song. It I suppose that verse shows that he is giving up and finally saying, "Fine, we'll just pretend that our love never existed!" He finally decided it wasn't worth trying to see them, and all he can think is "I don't have to see you right now" because he's trying to use logic to control what he feels. He says it over and over again until it feels natural or at least automatic.

My interpretation of the song is obviously very based off of my own life right now, but I totally see how you could interpret this song with a family member or friend. Or in a lot of situations, really.

Regardless, I think everyone can agree that this song is an absolute masterpiece.

its so nice and relaxing but it becomes sad as you find that hes like some how haunted by the memories of someone he loved and i asume that she wants to forget him(as the part of the song says why she keeps saying i dont have to se you right now). The whole metaphore of digging is like bringing back the memories so they stop burring the love or even save it (we could wash our hands off the dirt now, keep it from living underground=die)

Someone lying on their bed staring up at the ceiling, seeing a stain there that looks like a face (doesn't everyone do this, making patterns from marks on the ceiling?)

Song is about a desire for a person that the songwriter is trying and failing to bury. Likely a relationship has ended, songwriter likens this to a death (like digging a grave for a dead body: "Digging like you can bury / Something that cannot die / We could wash the dirt off our hands now"). The relationship won't die for the songwriter though, as they're being plagued by thoughts about it, even as they try hard to repress it - psychologically, repressing something painful doesn't work as the pain you're trying to ignore ends up infecting your life ("Keep it from living underground" - i.e., buried in the soil, in the subconscious)

The weirdness of that opening lyric, a stain on the ceiling that looks like a face and the face is repeating something over and over and over to you - this is all about the subconscious mind, something preying on your mind, to such a degree that your mind is pattern-seeking from random shapes like a rorschach test. This is a person in denial.

I think the line about "lazy summer goddess" matches the vibe of the song at large which is mounting to a breaking point the whole time, even while the song is quite dreamy, much like the mindset of someone just passively lying on a bed, whose mind is nonetheless swamped with trying NOT to think about seeing someone you very much want to see but you're telling yourself you don't HAVE to, to give yourself a sense of control. I love how beautifully the song ends back in the sort of deceptive peace and quiet of the room with the curtains moving a little in the breeze, that's what it makes me feel.

To me, it sounds like the singer is trying to convince himself that he doesn't need/want a certain person or ex, repeatedly saying "I don't need to see you right now." He is trying to suppress feelings that are too strong to die off ("digging like you can bury something that cannot die"). I think the "face stained in the ceiling" is representative of his persistent thoughts of his ex- he's seeing this person in everything he looks at. He's reminded that he/she doesn't want him, hearing their voice say "I don't have to see you right now" in the beginning. Because he has been rejected, he does the same thing and the line "I don't have to see you right now" becomes his own.

This song is absolutely gut wrenching to me. The last time I listened to it, I was crying on the floor of a shitty public university housing complex shower at the tail end of the semester after finding out my uncle had killed himself. I dealt with a lot of drama with peers, an abusive boyfriend, an abusive dad, was in the middle of an investigation/impending trial where I would have to testify against a sexual predator (multiple victims, including me, he gets released from prison in October of 2021), and I really neglected my family. To me, this song speaks of the kind of guilt I felt and still feel after losing someone like that. I can't listen to it anymore. It's too much for me.

I think it's actually about a one-sided relationship. Like person A likes person B, but person B doesn't like person A.

"Face stained in the ceiling Why does it keep saying, I don't have to see you right now"

Maybe a long-distance relationship where person A is like "we need to see each other" but person B isn't that interested, like "nah i'm fine here." and person A feels like shit after that and while they're in bed or something and staring at the ceiling, where that moment plays in their mind over and over again, because persom B's exact words were "I don't have to see you right now"

And the "Digging like you can bury Something that cannot die We could wash the dirt off our hands now Keep it from living underground"

Saying that person B is kinda just sweeping person A's love for them under the rug like it's lifeless, and then both of them shaking it off like it's just "whatever", trying to keep it from going on, kinda.

The "Lazy summer goddess/I don't have to see you right now" lyric, though, I think is person A talking to person B, finally saying "I don't have to take this" and standing up for themself.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it's how I've been interpreting it.