Now That You’re Gone

I heard this song after finally leaving a relationship with a narcissist and it really struck a chord with me. It is doubtful that it's what the song was actually written about but it just reminds me of the insidious nature of narcissistic abuse. You're isolated, the people who were once your friends are now their friends and everyone thinks you're crazy.... you think you're crazy... you're alone and miserable and the only person you've been trained to rely on is the person inflicting all of the suffering. They think they are smarter than you. They think you'll never leave. When you finally do they are so concerned about what everyone thinks. The story is that you've been the problem but now you're the one who ended it. You've been stripped of your entire identity and you are forced to struggle with determining what's true and what's not. You have to rebuild yourself. After months and months of hard work on picking up all the broken pieces and putting them back together the best you can, you talk to people from your old life and they see the light has returned within you. The best part is when you don't even have to say a word and the real story tells itself.

The song seems pretty directly aimed at an ex lover. I think there is a play between the verses and chorus, where the narrator is alternating between talking to his ex and to himself.

In the verses, the narrator is angry trying to make his ex feel bad. The ex thinks they are going to be good by moving onto someone new immediately, but the narrator knows they are vulnerable. During the relationship, he helped them with their vulnerability. He gave them love, trust, rescued them, and kept them warm (from his point of view). And he knows they need that, so he is challenging them to find that same love from someone else. He thinks he was special, that no one else could support them the way he did. In the final verse, he even supposes to know what they are thinking: he thinks they never saw this coming, that they're worried about what others are saying. Based on the chorus, I doubt he is really saying these things to their face; more like the arguments you have in your head in the shower.

In the chorus, however, he is being honest with himself. He isn't hiding behind the tough exterior he shows his ex. He isn't angry, he is only sad. Actually HE is the one who never thought it would end like this, HE never saw this coming. He has never felt unhappiness close to this, and he is the one who needs love and support. He has dedicated his life to this relationship, and now that it's gone he has no idea what he's going to do.

All of the things he claims he gave his ex are actually things that they gave him. And now, without them, he is lost. He is searching for all those things he believed he gave them, the true love that they used to give him. Deep down, he knows this and he knows that he lost something special when they left him. But he can only admit it briefly, he returns again to the anger and fake arguments. Of course, the chorus keeps repeating itself; so his honesty keeps returning to himself briefly, then he hides it again.