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The Size Of Our Love Lyrics
Our love is the size of these tumours inside us
Our love is the size of this hospital room
You're my hospital groom
Put the ring on my finger, so tight it turns blue
A constant reminder I'll die in this room
If you die in this room
Sit like a watchdog and patiently wait
Listen for footsteps down the hallways
Visit beds like they're graves
Days go by so slowly
Nights go by so slowly
In a hospital room
In a box built for two
I fight for air, fight for my own air
Forget all the things I can do alone
I fight for a heart. I fight for a strong heart
I fight to never know this sickness you know
But I know its my own, I gave it a home
Our love is the size of these tumours inside us
Our love is the size of this hole in the ground
Where my heart's buried now
Our love is the size of this hospital room
You're my hospital groom
A constant reminder I'll die in this room
If you die in this room
Listen for footsteps down the hallways
Visit beds like they're graves
Nights go by so slowly
In a hospital room
In a box built for two
Forget all the things I can do alone
I fight for a heart. I fight for a strong heart
I fight to never know this sickness you know
But I know its my own, I gave it a home
Our love is the size of this hole in the ground
Where my heart's buried now
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This is such a neat, creepy song. I love how the riff (between "our love is the size of" and "our tumors inside us") sounds like something echoing down a hallway. I don't think it's literally about someone who has a tumor, and might not even be about someone who's in the hospital. It seems to me like it's about an unhealthily dependant relationship. They're too possessive of each other--"so tight it turns blue"--and they can't survive without each other. The narrator of the song is the more mentally healthy of the two, and she knows the relationship is unhealthy. She feels suffocated and tries to break away and become independent--"fight for air, fight for my own air." But she knows she let the relationship develop this way, and now she's part of the sickness too ("I know it's my own, I gave it a home"). Throughout the song, romance is associated with sickness and claustrophobia. "The Size of Our Love" sounds like a grand statement, but it turns out their love is the size of tumors--something small and wrong inside you that makes you sick. It's also the size of a hospital room, which is gloomy and contained. Same for a hole in the ground where something is buried (as well as the implication of death). "A bicycle built for two" is romantic, but "a box built for two" implies that though they're together, they're suffocating/dead.
@mockingsmile I wish it said when this song came out... But I know it was in 1999 because the first time I heard it I was living it. Maybe it is a metaphor and if it is, it's a realistic one. It's an impossibly devastating and humbling experience (especially at 18, which I was) to have a ring on your finger from the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, who makes you love and believe in yourself more than you ever thought possible simply by seeing yourself through their eyes, who you have tied yourself to...
@mockingsmile I wish it said when this song came out... But I know it was in 1999 because the first time I heard it I was living it. Maybe it is a metaphor and if it is, it's a realistic one. It's an impossibly devastating and humbling experience (especially at 18, which I was) to have a ring on your finger from the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, who makes you love and believe in yourself more than you ever thought possible simply by seeing yourself through their eyes, who you have tied yourself to body and soul, waste away from cancer. Because it is a box built for two. Because it is your own tumor in a way, no you do not have to feel the pain or go through the treatment or face your own demise, yet your life becomes so about spending every waking second with this person that you can and then watching them sleep, willing time to just stop there. And you fight for a strong heart to be able to take what is most likely coming, to never have a tumor yourself but once you become someone who's heart is buried in a casket, the rest of your life is spent with something inside you that makes you different from other people, that makes everyone else fall short in your eyes, unworthy of your love. Also, the ring on the finger, turning blue, I'll die in this room... etc It is scary. I remember about a week before he died I went to a party. Because I couldn't take it anymore that night and wanted to feel "normal" and had told him I did it because I was scared and he said "how do you think I feel?!?" It can be suffocating. But you do it to yourself. And of course, a side note, if I had to do it all over again, the only thing I would have done different is realized I was in love with him sooner. And maybe had the guts to go too. Nothing good has happened since '99. That's the "I'll die in this room if you die in this room" bit. My family put me on suicide watch. I didn't want to die I just wanted to be with him. I gave it a home and this song gave it a voice. It was the only time in my life I did not write a single word - poetry, prose, anything - and I am a writer by profession and design - for months. This song was the only voice I had. If it's a metaphor, so be it. But it helped me immeasurably.
I lived this. This song came out in 1999 when I was 18. I really think it came out before August b/c that’s when my fiance died (Fri 13th). For some reason this used to happen to me a lot. i would hear a song that would describe my circumstances exactly. My fiance Gary had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I lived with him and his family for the last 9 months of his life. Let me explain this song at dace value which is how I lived it: It overshadows everything. Especially when they’re in the hospital. And you do feel sometimes that you want to run (“put this ring on my finger/so tight it turns blue/a constant reminder/I’ll die in this room if you die in this room”j which is something I did a week before he died. I blew off seeing him to go to a party. When he confronted me on it, I said the truth: I was scared. He yelled “don’t you think I’m scared?” and he was so right. But there’s still that sickness “I gave it a home” inside you whether or not you are “fight[ing] for [your] own heart.” I could go out with my friends like a normal person to a party but not a minute went by that I didn’t feel the hourglass sifting. The sad thing? He was my soul mate. I’m 41 now, I’ve never found anyone else I wanted to marry. He was everything. Ao the sad part is that last August it was 23 years (older than either of us were when he died) and the size of our love was so huge that even today “our love is the size of [that] hole in the ground, where my heart’s buried now.” (For Gary Michael Jacobs 11/10/78 to 8/13/99)
@OGRiotGrrrl Deepest sympathies on your ongoing loss. At least this song, for one, could capture just some of all your feelings.
@OGRiotGrrrl Deepest sympathies on your ongoing loss. At least this song, for one, could capture just some of all your feelings.
The vocals in this song are flawless.
I have nothing to say about the meaning, BUT....
When the violin transitions into the guitar as the drums kick in is pure genius.
AH! MY FAVORITE SONG!
one of my fav as well
this song means everything to me. i always think of amy and her family, watching kristy die in the hospital room. who ever knew that suicide was so close to home.
This song always makes me think of Dana and Alice fro the L Word for some reason.
Such a beautiful song. I honestly cant listen to this without tearing up.
who is amy and kristy??
Anyway, I always saw this song as the horror of having said husband in hospital: "You're my hospital groom... Put the ring on my finger, so tight it turns blue"
Who eventually dies of tumours: "Our love is the size of this hole in the ground Where my heart's buried now "