Black & White

"I am the archive of our failure."--I love this line.

I'm pretty sure this song (judging by the other songs on Surfacing and my personal experience with feeling this way) is about how you almost feel like a machine, or a robot, when you're depressed. You distance yourself from everyone, which is tough, especially when you're in a relationship ("The very center of our union is caving in."). The black and white and "everybody loves you when you're easy..." is how you end up just going through the motions to keep everyone happy, shutting off all emotions, when inside you're unraveling and falling apart.

this feels like me. at times, this feels like me.

I think this is just about feeling like you have to live up to standards of society, and just not being able to handle it anymore, and not knowing yourself.

"Everybody loves you when you're easy everybody hates when you're a bore everyone is waiting for your entrance so don't disappoint them"

I feel these lyrics are so true. Who hasn't at one point felt that? That you have to do things to please people or you're nothing. It's like a constant pressure to feel like you have to measure up to something. Totally awesome song

This song is amazingly true. As said its about a feeling that you have to live up to the standards of society, showed in: ""Everybody loves you when you're easy everybody hates when you're a bore.." ect. Most of the time I feel exactly like this song when it says: "And all I feel is black and white and I'm wound up small and tight and I don't know who I am." My favourite part is the starting: "Unravel me a distant cord on the outside is forgotten a constant need to get along.."

this song about how they try to be themself as well as be excepted by the society "to get along and the animal awakens and all I feel is black and white" this mean like to get along with people just makes them feel black and white...its devoid of sense , and makes them not who you are at all...

but still they have to do it coz its a "a constant need" and remain themself that

"Everybody loves you when you're easy everybody hates when you're a bore everyone is waiting for your entrance so don't disappoint them"

I always thought when she says "I can't endure" that she was saying "I can't enjoy". I even felt bad for stealing the line for a song that I wrote. But I feel like either way it fits real well with the song.

This is my favorite Sarah McLachlan song and has personal meaning to me. It has helped me deal with many breakups.

I feel the entire song is about the core of a breakup, blaming oneself, taking that blame on, and finding fault. Black and white are commonly referred to right or wrong. No gray area. My fault or her fault. I am the archive of our failure - this is all my fault and I know it. But can I deal with it? No. I can't. People don't like that. People need to see me not this way. Even though I am wound up as tight as I can be and because of this loss I have no idea who I am or what I have become. How do I move on when I feel so much pressure for this loss and I am not allowed to show it or to express it? I have so much anger inside ("The animal awakens") but I can't deal with this now... so I push it away to get through each day.

I wish a video had been made for this. I would love to see what Sarah McLachlan's interpretation of this song visually would be. It defines what I think is happening a lot in our society - people on the outside looking cool, calm, and collected, and inside rotting with anger and pressure trying to live with the denial of what is really happening and their failure to deal with it.

I love this song! To me, this is a song about being in a relationship that is failing before your eyes. As you watch it decay, you still play the role of happy participant. You have expressed your needs, but they fall on deaf ears, so you continue on the preserve the peace (“constant need To get along”). “ I push it back to get thru each day”..and the rest of the song are about faking the happiness and over exaggerating pleasure when in groups, but crashing when alone. The center of our union IMO means the base of your relationship (live/intimacy) is gone causing the relationship to cave in because there is no foundation. You are the archive of our failure, not the cause, meaning you record the failures and displeasures in the relationship by your needs not being met and your partner is content with the failure. You are trapped, and feeling black and white all the time…numb from the pain and lack of live and intimacy, doomed to live in a happy, but empty life. Eternal stay with Dante “Desire without hope”.