Roses From My Friends

aww... i love this. i did an analysis on this for english class. such a pretty song.

i love this song too.... but what the hell does the chorus mean?? im confused....

i think that the chorus means that he can survive it when his enemies are mean to him (throw stones at him) but when his friends are nice and help him out (give him roses) he doesn't know how to reciprocate. i think that ben harper is the only one who'll know for sure though, i'm just taking a wild guess.

I think that the chorus means that he can survive hurt from his enemies, because it's expected. However, he can't survive his friends being fake to him. Roses are used as a metaphor...they are beatiful on the outside (symbolizing seeminly good intentions), but they have thorns (symbolizing the hidden agendas of friends)...his friends are backstabbing and he begins to feel that he even knows strangers better than he knows his friends.

i agree erdysouth! and how true is that too...when someone you love and really care about hurts you it can seem to hit you 10 times harder than if the hurt or fakeness were coming from an enemy or random person.

erdysouth- you hit it right on the nose. well done.

Yeah I have to say, erdysouth, thats the best interpretation I've ever heard. Ben Harper is such a great song writer and performer, I'm suprised he isn't more popular. A song like this conveys a very real feeling in such a beautiful and creative way. Friends are supposed to be the people who help you and who support you. It hurts like hell having a friend who pretends like they give a shit, but really they don't. They have their own agenda and are backstabbing. It really does hurt when it happens to you. I especially love the last verse, where you see that he really loves this person and doesnt want to leave them. It really makes this song alot sadder, because he loves someone who really doesn't love him.

this is about a friendship that u give your all, u love and care about them more than they do to u. u would have given them everything, and they treat u like crap. "I could have treated you better but you couldn't have treated me worse" and after the fact of them treating u horribly, they are the first to cry when they lose u. someone u thought u knew treats u badly. they treat u worse than a stranger would. "Sometimes I feel I know strangers better than I know my friends" if someone hurts u with stones that can pass, but someone giving u a rose hurts even more. roses usually are given when someone is making up for a wrongdoing. the thorns hurting more than stone. "all that shall remain is a token of what we've said and done" the friendship now so different it is not repairable. it is now a friendship of the past, it will be no longer the same. "that's the sound of a heart taken and the story of tears from a king" heart is broken by having to leaving this friendship, the tears from a king being a king defeated, now powerless. his throne taken over. "This may be the last time I see you forgive me for holding you close" its inevitable, it is a friendship he would love to hold on to, and deeply cares and loves this person but knows what is best. "but if you keep me in your heart together we shall be eternal if you believe we shall never part" it will always be a relationship filled with love and caring for one another. that will always go on, but the friendship can not.

I cant believe that no one has thought that this was about a relationship, because i believe it is. The stones part is obivious and has been stated, but roses from friends or flowers is usually given when something is wrong, ie breaking up. I think that a lot of these words are a little too personal to be friends, and wounds will mend where a broken heart is usually not mended so easily.

i think it probably has something to do with a relationship. "distant church bells no loger ring". friends dont hear church bells.