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”
Endless evenings of non-exist
Are getting shorter, monotonous
Like an intruder, I belong outside
Although I find myself right back
The place I was before
Saying things I've say once more
There's no reason for me to be here, no
I feel so lonesome surrounded by friends
Who are talking about me, saying things
I could care less about
This dialogue is without
Worth, content, significance
Conversational ambivalence
Hear the same things every night,
It just ain't right
I'm not the one to hold the bag
Give me something I can sink my teeth into
Show me a time, tell me a story
That I haven't heard a million times before
I pass out from boredom
As I watch the people pass
I see moments in their live, nothing fascinating
Are we all living for the past, never realizing
We're clinging to an empty bag
Lacking content, significance
Conversational ambivalence
Hear the same things every night,
It just ain't right
We'll see who's left holding the bag
Are getting shorter, monotonous
Like an intruder, I belong outside
Although I find myself right back
The place I was before
Saying things I've say once more
There's no reason for me to be here, no
I feel so lonesome surrounded by friends
Who are talking about me, saying things
I could care less about
This dialogue is without
Worth, content, significance
Conversational ambivalence
Hear the same things every night,
It just ain't right
I'm not the one to hold the bag
Give me something I can sink my teeth into
Show me a time, tell me a story
That I haven't heard a million times before
I pass out from boredom
As I watch the people pass
I see moments in their live, nothing fascinating
Are we all living for the past, never realizing
We're clinging to an empty bag
Lacking content, significance
Conversational ambivalence
Hear the same things every night,
It just ain't right
We'll see who's left holding the bag
Lyrics submitted by AtomicGarden
The Bag Lyrics as written by Mike Burkett
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Everyone's interpretation is based on personal experience. For me, it's all about meth addiction. Literally every single sentence describes what the world of meth addiction is like.
The first stanza is verbalizing how your whole life turns into a ritual of scoring and getting high. Even tho you're so tired and fed up with it, you just continue to repeat the same mistakes.
The second stanza is about how it effects your relationships. When you're on meth you surround yourself with others who are as well. It not only allows you to openly use but to avoid the reality of how awful it is. But soon you start to get fed up. You start hearing the same stories over and over, you start to realize that your conversations are utterly meaningless bullshit, you're just trying to fill time with words. They're empty and meaningless. You start to realize that everyone is stabbing everyone else in the back, just because meth turns good people into monsters.
The third short stanza is just a continuation of that though. You lose interest in utterly everything. You become listless. You feel like you could literally pass out from boredom.
The last stanza is coming to the realization of the situation. You start to see very clearly how miserable and pathetic your life has become.
The bag itself, to me, is both literal and metaphorical, as most NOFX lyrics are.
The literal being a bag of speed. It's always empty or just about. There's never enough. And addicts tend to keep their used baggies for whatever reason, literally holding on to an empty bag.
The metaphorical being, the bag represents emptiness. Most often, when people use, they are trying to fill a void in themselves. The sad irony is, meth just makes you more empty. You forget your dreams and your goals and your aspirations. Your life becomes consumed with getting your hands on that little bag. You start to realize that all that's in that bag, no matter how full of dope, it's really just filled with emptiness.
Your life has now become an endless attempt at filling emptiness with more emptiness. And you see that no one else gets it. Once you do you start to HATE the bag. You realize that it's your enemy and your friends enemy. And no matter how much you try to explain this to them, until they have their own epiphany, it's pointless.
Eventually I got off of dope and did so way before my friends did. This song was a very big motivation for me during recovery. The bag came to represent everything about meth addiction in my mind. I saw I was losing all of my friends and it's because they were clinging to an empty bag.
Once some of them started to recover, I told them to listen to this song, they got it instantly. So all of us used to constantly say to each other, "don't be the one left holding the bag".
Be the one who lets it go.