Formaldehyde

His relationship is dead, but the love is still alive in his heart.

Do you already broke with someone you love and feels that despair that kills you? I think he want to say that on:

"I'm lost in a love that's a mile wide Drowned in a bath of formaldehyde"

He's lost, desperated, but his love is like submersed in a bath of formaldehyde (a fluid that prevent dead bodies to decompose) and so it still exists.

Just my thoughts:

Would you butcher my love To understand it To know where it lies? Cut a hole in my heart Fill a hole in your life

I'm yours to dissect Now, does every heartbeat Burn white heat in your blood?

(He is saying she analyzes everything to death, dissecting his feelings and reading into everything he does just to find out if he really loves her)

Formaldehyde (He is calling her this, as if she is keeping him in this state of being disembodied and not feeling whole.)

The tissue and bones my soul has on loan Aches to be near you Are you listening carefully? Then we shall begin

(It doesn't matter how many times he tells her he loves her, she doesn't belief him)

Now does every heartbeat Burn white heat in your blood?

(this is what she wants...him to be infatuated with her)

I hope it doesn't matter I hope we swim up out of this flood

(but he hopes they get out of this rut)

Of formaldehyde (I'll never let you go) Formaldehyde (until the end of time) Formaldehyde (I'll never let you go) Formaldehyde (oh formaldehyde)

(because he does love her)

Smother my love, entertain it My mind's gonna wander Are you listening carefully? Then we shall begin

(He's saying that if she smother's him so much, he's gonna loose interest in her)

Oh

Now does every heartbeat Burn white heat in your blood? I hope it doesn't matter I hope we swim up out of this flood Of formaldehyde (I'll never let you go) Formaldehyde (until the end of time) Formaldehyde (I'll never let you go) Formaldehyde (oh, Formaldehyde)

I'm lost to a love that's a mile wide Drowning in a bath of formaldehyde

(he can't seem to leave her, even though he knows this relationship is not healthy)

Now does every heartbeat Burn white heat in your blood? I hope it doesn't matter I hope we swim up out of this flood

Of formaldehyde (I'll never let you go) Formaldehyde (until the end of time) Formaldehyde (I'll never let you go) Formaldehyde (Oh Formaldehyde)

I'm lost to a love that's a mile wide Drowning in a bath of formaldehyde

formaldehyde is a toxic gas and so the song is basically about their love being destructive such a good song

Well formaldehyde is what they use to persevere dead organs/bodies. So maybe it's a lost 'dead' love that he isn't moving on from. He is holding on to it with formaldehyde.

Or since he says you can butcher my love, cut a hole in my heart dissect me...maybe someone's cruelty in not believing his love or rejecting effectively 'killed' him and he is hanging on by a the preservative. Or he is hanging on because he still loves them so they are his formaldehyde.

I think it's important to keep in mind that formaldehyde is both a preservative AND a toxic chemical. To me it doesn't sound like a dead relationship; it sounds like one that they're both trying to hold onto—to preserve—even though it might be toxic: "I hope we swim up out of this flood."

I'm also pretty sure it's "The tissue and bone / THAT my soul has on loan." His body doesn't really belong to him; his soul is just borrowing it. I think the lyrics are trying to reconcile the complex machine of the physical body and the physical sensations of love and pain with the rollercoaster of emotion that comes from being in love, especially in a complicated relationship.