This song focuses around a man who was left by his wife/girlfriend/lover. It's not clear if she cheated on him. Many think it is implied by the line "Your kiss goes everywhere, touches everything, but me." It's also possible that it is an expression of his feeling isolated after losing her love.
Whether she cheated on him, or simply grew tired of and fell out of love with him, it's implied by the "hush me, touch me" lines that she was cold towards him while they were together, both physically and emotionally. The touch me is obviously a plea for physical contact, so it stands to reason that the "hush me" is a plea for emotional contact. He is asking her to stop him crying, screaming, what-have-you; to quiet and console him.
The burns on the sheets are both literally from her cigarettes and a figurative representations of every time she has hurt him, scarred him, ruined him.
"All these years I've been your ashtray [but not today]" Though he sees her as having hurt him and used him, he is refusing to let his hurt continue. At the same time, he either blames himself for her inability to love him or is ashamed by his inability to move on ("I'm hoping the smoke/ Hides the shame I've got on my face").
The "perfume, the wind and the leaves" &c. lines are memories. "Cognac and broken glass" links later on to "Lipstick, a slap on my cheek/ Your eyes cried at last/ told me everything I was afraid to ask." and sound to me like a fight between them. Most probably their last fight where the relationship-ending confession came out.
When she leaves him and he is alone, he finds a smoked cigarette in their bed with her lipstick on the filter making it a "pink cigarette." This item both represents all he has left of her, and something so insignificant that routinely got closer to her than he ever was able to, and it haunts him.
"Now I'm dressed in white/ And you've burned me for the last time [this ain't the last time]/ You'll find a note and you'll see my silhouette" He's pure, purged of her and the constant longing he feels for her love and closeness. Or at least he will be soon, once he kills himself. The method? Lighting himself on fire in her bed. It is at once a tribute to how she has hurt him in the past, makes him closer to being the thing she was closest to (her cigarettes) in an effort to finally make her see him, and mimics the way she left her memory in his bed when she left by creating a burn in her sheets shaped like him.
The countdown is him screaming as he's being burned alive and waiting for her to find what will be left of his corpse when she returns home. The beeping is a heart monitor that eventually flat-lines.
This song focuses around a man who was left by his wife/girlfriend/lover. It's not clear if she cheated on him. Many think it is implied by the line "Your kiss goes everywhere, touches everything, but me." It's also possible that it is an expression of his feeling isolated after losing her love.
Whether she cheated on him, or simply grew tired of and fell out of love with him, it's implied by the "hush me, touch me" lines that she was cold towards him while they were together, both physically and emotionally. The touch me is obviously a plea for physical contact, so it stands to reason that the "hush me" is a plea for emotional contact. He is asking her to stop him crying, screaming, what-have-you; to quiet and console him.
The burns on the sheets are both literally from her cigarettes and a figurative representations of every time she has hurt him, scarred him, ruined him.
"All these years I've been your ashtray [but not today]" Though he sees her as having hurt him and used him, he is refusing to let his hurt continue. At the same time, he either blames himself for her inability to love him or is ashamed by his inability to move on ("I'm hoping the smoke/ Hides the shame I've got on my face").
The "perfume, the wind and the leaves" &c. lines are memories. "Cognac and broken glass" links later on to "Lipstick, a slap on my cheek/ Your eyes cried at last/ told me everything I was afraid to ask." and sound to me like a fight between them. Most probably their last fight where the relationship-ending confession came out.
When she leaves him and he is alone, he finds a smoked cigarette in their bed with her lipstick on the filter making it a "pink cigarette." This item both represents all he has left of her, and something so insignificant that routinely got closer to her than he ever was able to, and it haunts him.
"Now I'm dressed in white/ And you've burned me for the last time [this ain't the last time]/ You'll find a note and you'll see my silhouette" He's pure, purged of her and the constant longing he feels for her love and closeness. Or at least he will be soon, once he kills himself. The method? Lighting himself on fire in her bed. It is at once a tribute to how she has hurt him in the past, makes him closer to being the thing she was closest to (her cigarettes) in an effort to finally make her see him, and mimics the way she left her memory in his bed when she left by creating a burn in her sheets shaped like him.
The countdown is him screaming as he's being burned alive and waiting for her to find what will be left of his corpse when she returns home. The beeping is a heart monitor that eventually flat-lines.