In a smoke filled room
With your father watching me
There's three doors and no keys
It''s rising, it's choking me
In a smoke filled room x2
There's a man with no face
Just a blurred out portrait
In a photo frame
I'm losing again, I'm losing
My friend is face down on the pavement
Then a woman, she screams 'It's terrible night'
As the mood changes to dark from light
Tell the doctor what's become of me
So they can analyse, analyse my dreams
Of a smoke filled room x3
Then we kiss and his lips turn into sand
And the whole of him cascades through my hands
Making a castle on the floor
Then I'm alone again
No keys and three doors
In a smoke filled room
Now we're both in the room
And we're breathing the fumes
No doors this time, just a gap in the roof
Light floods in, heaven we're blind
Then slowly suffocating, we're dying
In a smoke filled room
We're dying in a smoke filled room
We're dying in a smoke filled room
(Instrumental)
In a smoke filled room x3
With your father watching me
There's three doors and no keys
It''s rising, it's choking me
In a smoke filled room x2
There's a man with no face
Just a blurred out portrait
In a photo frame
I'm losing again, I'm losing
My friend is face down on the pavement
Then a woman, she screams 'It's terrible night'
As the mood changes to dark from light
Tell the doctor what's become of me
So they can analyse, analyse my dreams
Of a smoke filled room x3
Then we kiss and his lips turn into sand
And the whole of him cascades through my hands
Making a castle on the floor
Then I'm alone again
No keys and three doors
In a smoke filled room
Now we're both in the room
And we're breathing the fumes
No doors this time, just a gap in the roof
Light floods in, heaven we're blind
Then slowly suffocating, we're dying
In a smoke filled room
We're dying in a smoke filled room
We're dying in a smoke filled room
(Instrumental)
In a smoke filled room x3
Lyrics submitted by natalyax
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I think it's about living and dying honestly. The doors could be birth,
death and something else, maybe one is suicide while the other is natural causes. The smoke could represent the fact that in the act of living we are dying. We must breathe because we are alive but breathing also hurts us. The fact that she reminisces on the death of a friend, who is perhaps also the faceless portrait because he's dead. The father could be a reference to god, apparently watching us but absent. Maybe the remote nature of this father references doubt.
Then she is no longer alone and the doors disappear, and the only way out is up into the light. Then they literally suffocate and die but they may be escaping as well.
Or I could be wrong and it could be a woman's dying thoughts as she literally suffocates in smoke, without any symbolism at all.
There's a man with no face
Just a blurred out portrait
In a photo frame
I'm losing again, I'm losing
My friend is face down on the pavement
Then a woman, she screams 'It's terrible night'
As the mood changes to dark from light
Tell the doctor what's become of me
So they can analyse, analyse my dreams
The last mention of the doctor seems very disparaging like she doesn't trust them or doesn't think the revisiting the event is helping. Or maybe it's because she knows what the smoke filled room signifies but doesn't want to acknowledge it.
Then we kiss and his lips turn into sand
And the whole of him cascades through my hands
Making a castle on the floor
Then I'm alone again
No keys and three doors
In a smoke filled room
Now we're both in the room
And we're breathing the fumes
No doors this time, just a gap in the roof
Light floods in, heaven we're blind
Then slowly suffocating, we're dying
Then her friend is gone and she us left reeling from the after effects and the trauma which is manifesting in these dreams of this smoke-filled room where he is dying all over again, there are three doors and no keys (not sure what these mean ) but she is adamant she will die inside her own smoke-filled mind locked up unable to save her friend, believing that they are dying together.
"'In a smoke filled room
With your father watching me
There's three doors and no keys
it's choking me"
the father being an older client
the doors and keys are her dreams of alternative ways she could get off the street and live in safety but she feels there is no way out of the prostitute life
"There's a man with no face
Just a blurred out portrait
In a photo frame
I'm losing again, I'm losing
My friend is face down on the pavement'"
the portrait of the man is a symbol of how a man should be but the face is blurred out as to indicate there is no man there, just a sleazy perverse monster.
'my friend is face down on the pavement' is her prostitute friend that has been beaten by her pimp or a client
''Then a woman, she screams 'It's terrible night'
As the mood changes to dark from light
Tell the doctor what's become of me
So they can analyse, analyse my dreams
Of a smoke filled room''
the woman (prostitute) is so used to the danger of working as a hooker that when any reality of normal 'clean living' life shades into her warped world is to much for her to bare so it pains her. hence why she creates 'smoke' or haze when she is whoring herself to cover up her true feelings.
The smoke filled room is the room she is whoring herself in at the time and so she doesn't feel anything while it's happening she just blocks everything out.
"Then we kiss and his lips turn into sand
And the whole of him cascades through my hands
Making a castle on the floor
Then I'm alone again
No keys and three doors
In a smoke filled room"
The man in this scenario is a lover but he too is corrupt and any fantasy of them running away to live a normal life together disintegrates eventually 'making a castle on the floor' ...then she's alone again with no keys an 3 doors, the room is still smoke meaning her reality is still not right for her
"Now we're both in the room
And we're breathing the fumes
No doors this time, just a gap in the roof
Light floods in, heaven we're blind
Then slowly suffocating, we're dying
We're dying in a smoke filled room"
She has repressed the reality of her actions so much so that her soul is dying, the man was already dead on the inside long ago but anyway.. They're both dying in the dream reality because they both don't want to face anything they've done properly with absolute truth.
In a smoke filled room
With your father watching me
There's three doors and no keys
It''s rising, it's choking me
This to me is talking about being in the gas chambers choking on the smoke, there are three entrances and no way out. This is supported in a different verse when she says "No doors now just a gap in the roof." This to me was talking about the holes in the roof where they dropped the gas through.
Then a woman, she screams 'It's terrible night'
As the mood changes to dark from light
Tell the doctor what's become of me
So they can analyse, analyse my dreams
This to me is sort of a sarcastic verse almost, at first talking about the woman's fear and her screaming as everyone realizes what's going on too late. The more sarcastic part is when she talks about the doctor analyzing her dreams of the smoke filled room, of the gas chamber. That to me is talking about the ignorance of everyone outside the walls. Obviously through the rest of the song for the most part she is talking about people dying and falling to the floor as they suffocate in the smoke filled room, and faceless people looking in and watching them die.
I know it's dark and unpleasant, but most of their songs are. Unless I'm reading into this way too literally and it's really just a metaphorical song about her ex-boyfriend or something..this is just always what thought.