Picking Up Pieces Lyrics

Lyric discussion by bcreek511 

Cover art for Picking Up Pieces lyrics by Blue October

I agree with all that the poster above has said. I fortunately have not had any mental illness such as depression/bi-polar/mpd/etc but I have studied Justin's writing and have a couple of comments to add to it.

A lot of posters seem to attribute this song to a female companion but in my experience with Justin and his writing, when it comes to songs about his mental state, several of them are directed to family members. As in the song for my brother, we see that Justin trusts his brother implicitly and confides in him when he can't confide in anyone else. I believe that this song is one side of a monologue with his brother.

We see Justin constantly trying to keep it all together. several lines about putting a game face on, perfect stick of glue, etc say to me that he is trying to be normal and appear normal. This is echoed from the song HRSA when he is putting on a show for his group, hiding self abuse, denying feelings, etc.

The most poignant line to me is the line about misplacing trust and watching his word rust. To me it sounds like he has tried to confide in other people and told himself "you can be honest with them" and those people have betrayed his trust and so he has gotten to the point where he can't trust himself (possibly the reason for reaching out to his brother?)

The constant lines about picking up the pieces of his heart are a throw back (if I have my time line correct) to hate me when you can almost taste the regret he has for hurting his family so much. Every time he relapses or has an episode he feels like he lets them down and it breaks his heart. He is just ready to stop letting everyone down.

Those are my additions, please tell me what you think! GREAT SONG!

I love how genuine blue october are, its a thinG that annoys me about a lot of pop music, they don't have much meaning, they're all really about the same things and might not even relate to the singer...

I'm not sure what Justin's mental problems are, from reading these responses it says he has bipolar? And I just Wiki'd him and it says he spent time in a mental institution and a lot of the music relates to that.. And that the Pick Up The Phone tour had to be cancelled due to him being admitted to hospital from...

oops rated it by mistakes hoping i could delete or edit it.. and this was supposed to go under comments not reply but hey i'll write it again, I meant BPD not MPD