The Crawl

This is the ultimate breakup song... The lines "don't go and lose your face at some strangers place" relates to the tendency to fall into a rebound-type situation or to just go and have a one night stand after a difficult breakup.

this song is about someone who has just lost the very thing he lived for. now he doesnt want anything anymore, he just wants to dissapear

I love this song, it's a perfect end to such an amazingly good album. My favourite line in the song is 'Your smile would make me sneeze when we were siamese'. Although I'm not sure whether I've put the right meaning to it, my interpretation is that when he was with the person he loved before they left ('...when we were siamese'), their smile was like a ray of sun ('Your smile would make me sneeze'). Because the sun makes you sneeze, right?

Anyway, good song. No matter how my music tastes change, I always have a soft spot and a lot of respect for Placebo.

that's the song that made me fall in love with placebo, really. there's something completely amoral, obsessive and sexual about it.. a loveful hate or hateful love, and dependency, need. it's amazing. the thing that takes the pain away is obviously the drugs.. which probably turned this person he loved/hated away. they had no bond, no glue anymore, they're distant now, and he has no more tricks to makes her/him stay. but still.. the person lays him down and makes him crawl and beg for his/her attention and love. it's a bit like he's submitting his personallity for this person's love/sex. they were too tight, or siamese, for their own good, and got sick of each other. allergic to each other. it also gives the impression that the person pretends to be holy, when he/she isn't any of it. and brian's obssessive, and would even pay to have the person near, he'd do anything. the don't go and lose your face thing is like.. his identity lies with brian, and the person knows that. so if the person leaves him for someone else, it's like losing his/her identity, and stop breathing. and paying before he/she leaves, because he/she feels guilty.. like sex for him/her now feels like prostitution, or something to feel guilty about, without brian. so lay him down and let his lies go on, lay him down to start over again, to beg again. so brian starts the song as the poor guy.. but the tables turn, and he know what lies with him now.

I think this is about someones life being destroyed by drugs and also about someone who was in a relationship with him/her.

It takes the pain away that could not make you stay it's way to broke to fix no glue, no bag of tricks

The other person has left, because his person is too dependent on drugs.<

Don't go and lose your face at some stranger's place and don't forget to breathe and pay before you leave

This sounds like it could be a farewell from the girlfriend/boyfriend to the drug addict. Maybe The first two lines, they are pleading not to do it, but then in the next two lines, they accept they will go do it no mater what.<

Lay me down, the lie will unfurl lay me down to crawl.

I think this is about becoming dependent on drugs, the line unfurls and you become useless.

I like this song a lot. I learned to play this on my guitar and I already knew the words... coincidencely (I think that may be a word) my friend had passed away soon after. I never played the same song as many times I did this one in my life. This song is very pretty.

Yes, this is almost certainly a breakup song.

The music is fucking CREEPY. The candences make me shiver.

i agree, archagon. this song is delighfully creepy. it's beautiful, though, it gives me the shivers as well.

I think Brian said once that 'smile would make me sneeze' was a reference to really disliking someone to the point where you were allergic to them, and, it seems, even their expressions

i think that this song is one of their best...isn't it?