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We'll correct collegiate mistakes, a shower of formal ideals, completely soused.
The hearts on our sleeves as they drowned we could hear them screaming.
Oh what a tragic way to see our final days.
I attempt to talk up the town: The answers are in the arches of the
20th Century Towers and in comfortable cars in motion.
And yet it still remains, this incessant refrain:
You're just like the rest. Your restlessness makes you lazy.
Keeping busy is just wasting time and I've wasted what little he gave me. (all around)
I know the conscious choice was crystal clear, to clean the slate of former years:
When I sang softly in your ear and tied these arms around you.
The hearts on our sleeves as they drowned we could hear them screaming.
Oh what a tragic way to see our final days.
I attempt to talk up the town: The answers are in the arches of the
20th Century Towers and in comfortable cars in motion.
And yet it still remains, this incessant refrain:
You're just like the rest. Your restlessness makes you lazy.
Keeping busy is just wasting time and I've wasted what little he gave me. (all around)
I know the conscious choice was crystal clear, to clean the slate of former years:
When I sang softly in your ear and tied these arms around you.
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when ben says "completely soused" i also think he means under the influence, mainly because he has made other references to alcohol in other death cab songs. that line makes me think that his initial love interest was alcohol induced, and when he says "they drowned" perhaps he could be referring to himself and his lover, or perhaps a metaphor their hearts, being drowned in alcohol. i'm not so sure about the "final days" line. perhaps he thinks that his drunken love will begin a new chapter in his life, and he is bidding farewell to himself, to begin life as a new ben.
or something like that.
i'm not so sure about the rest of the song, but i think the overall meaning is about a relationship that he may regret getting into, but can't let go of.
not too sure about the middle passage.