Dissolve

How come nobody's commented on this one yet? I personally think this is one of Guster's most moving/disturbing songs. My interpretation: This one's DEFINITELY about death. I think someone's brother has just committed suicide, but they feel like they could have stopped their brother. They bear the weight of their sibling's death (though the 'brother' reference doesn't have to be taken literally; there seems to be a little BIblical reference, so it could be just a good frind of the singer), and it's killing them as well. Though, this is a little confusing...the part about denial. I'm not sure whether the person is feeling guilty, or denying the fact that their 'brother' has killed himself, or maybe a little of both? I do think, though, that by the end, the singer is trying to convince htem that it's not their fault, they couldn't have done anything to stop their 'brother,' that it's in the hands of God...but, again, at the end, the "To figure out/It's not your fault...Your brother won't be proud of you/Proud of you anymore," is saying that if they over-analyze this, if they try to find out how it couldn't be their fault, their 'brother' won't be proud of them...so was it their fault, or wasn't it?

Someone else needs to comment on this song, ^_^.

deffinately about suicide, it's almost like a song to comfort the 2 people closest to the person who died, telling them it's not their fault.

I think that inside the CD it says this song is Dedicated to two people, so that kind of backs the theory up.

my current favorite guster song.

wow. this song seriously hits home for me.

i agree with what wilsmith and sukireru said, that it's directed at a survivor of someone who's committed suicide and is assuring them that it isn't their fault. however, i'd like to take it a step farther.

i think that the person who was left behind has been allowing their guilt and/or grief to hold him (or her) back in his own life.
"And it’s the both of you he’s ruined He’s torn away all the desire born inside" it's so easy, and so readily accepted in our society, to make excuses along the lines of, "my ____ killed himself and that's why i'm depressed/addicted/otherwise f*cked-up."

the lyrics here are basically telling him to get real, to knock it off and get on with your own life. they even go so far as to compare that to the original suicide, calling the way the person is wasting his life a "mental suicide" and accusing the survivor of "blam[ing] him for your own life."

what i've written sounds pretty harsh, and i'm not sure that's the way it's intended. certainly there is an element of compassion, and of comforting in there as well. but i don't think it's quite that simple.

Ok, here's the way the story was told to me. Ryan Miller wrote this song for a couple who lost their one of their children to suicide. The song is written for that couple and attempts to both express the feelings they have, and solutions to it. It's an extremely powerful song, and here's how I interpret it.

The shock that your young child has just committed suicide clouds the realization that you could not have done anything to stop him. You couldn't have, for example, come home from work early, caught him in the act, and saved his life. It's a lie to tell yourself that if you had done something differently he would still be alive. How can you blame his actions for what you are feeling right now, that's only killing yourself, and it's carrying you away into ideas that aren't true. "Dissolve your fear into one." I honestly love this line to death. It says to me, you have to let it go, you have to let yourself not forget him, but forget the instance, let it dissolve away, and the song says that it will dissolve away in time. So then it's true that we aren't immune to all the talks of tragedies, it's true that it really can happen to anyone. There's a way out of this pain (dissolving), but you can't even see this yet because you're still in denial of this event happening. To try and understand why he killed himself....it will get you no where and you will not ever understand it. To try and find the meaning....you're lying to yourself again. And then i think Ryan really speaks to people his beliefs of how to deal with this...and no one expresses it better than him. So interpreting...

To be able to right the wrong that he's made is To try and understand why he did it is To finally figure that It's in his plans

To leave it alone and just let it be is To find a way To (finally) figure out that It's not your fault

Huge, huge, huge....this song has helped me through many hard times...and i hope that with this interpretation, it will do the same for you.

I pretty much agree with Kinger.

I think the song is pretty much telling them to move on after the suicide. That they need to stop guilting themselves, because, blaming themselves for his suicide is actually blaming his suicide for everything that's wrong in their lives.

It works this way: If they continue to blame themselves, they're racked with guilt. Then whenever they fall through on their real responsibilities, the guilt-depression becomes an excuse.

It boils down to: they need to stop feeling guilty and sorry for themselves.

how under freeging rated is this song???!!!!!!

Is the line "It's true we aren't immune" a reference to the line "and it's true we are immune" from U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday? I've always wondered.

I don't like sad songs. Nice of them to write it for the couple though. Might have helped them, but I don't know how you could ever totally recover from that.

I'd never seen so much meaning in this song before. I've always liked it, and I had a feeling it was about death, but... Gah. Guster has amazing lyrics.