Have You Seen Me Lately Lyrics

Lyric discussion by MIC 

Cover art for Have You Seen Me Lately lyrics by Counting Crows

I’ve felt that the thing that was supposed to.....supposed to flush me out, to make me feel the least like the ghost-type fella, was actually turning me into a ghost instead. I wanted to disappear everytime I heard myself on the radio. Not that I didn’t like hearing it, but after a while, you’re in a restaurant or in a bar somewhere, and it plays, and everyone looks at you, and it just creeped me out after a while. I felt that I couldn’t get into a place where people weren’t looking at me. I do feel that being a musician is about the life of a song. I think that the public, a lot of the time , have a tendency to color people in, who are famous. Make them their own image. Take what they believe a famous person should be, and what they’re like, and what they have, and how they’re life is, and color it into the person who may have nothing to do with that. That’s what the last verse of that song is about. It’s saying: "Having felt that I was so disappearing, why didn’t somebody tell me this was happening. I thought somebody would notice. I thought somebody would say something if I was disappearing...if I was missing". And then he sort of screams out: "can’t you see me?" And then he says: "OK, well then, color me in. If I’m everything you think I am... go on, color me in. And while you’re at it, make the sky green, make the... what is it...blue rain...make the rain blue, and make the sky black. If you can make me anything you want, go ahead and do that. Make the whole world anything you want. But, Give me your blue rain, give me your black sky...or just give me your green eyes... or your white skin. Something real. " Do you really know who I am? Everyone was saying they did. I’m not sure they did. You’re suddenly...you can become a very semi-private person who has trouble dealing with people, and the next day you belong to everyone. And, all I’m saying is that I’m not sure you get it, really. People come up to and they say "oh...we love you, we love you, can we take a picture with you?" Pictures make me uncomfortable. I can’t tell you why, but they do. And since they do, I probably shouldn’t do them. So, I’d say "I don’t really feel comfortable doing that." They say "ya, well, screw you...we made you." No you didn’t. The truth is, I was always me. I wasn’t nothing before this happened. I may not have been famous, I may not have been wealthy, but I was something. You don’t make somebody. You don’t. And, you can’t take it away either. That’s the thing people don’t realize. I appreciate what they’re saying.... they’re just saying that "we appreciate what you do." But, I couldn’t always take all that appreciation, sometimes. I just need a little space.