I've always loved this song and songs and lyrics 'mean' different things depending on how it moves you, the place and time you heard it, a 'turn of phrase' and all those things. Often there is is irony and in music there is often contradictions, it's not just lyrics.
This song always struck me as being not only beautiful but 'unusual' in that way...
The 'key' is perhaps the 'outro' lyrics that enigmatically drift out of the song at the end...
he's on the buses
and the aeroplanes
with some groceries
and a sleeping bag
Contrary to the video clip, I think and may even have heard that is the loss of a 'love' through drugs or mental illness and decline. "i live a lie","believing that you are mine"...as is pointed out is like a love unrequited, not returned. That one would pretend to 'sleep' rather than hear or care. Or perhaps, they just went backpacking LOL and I sense a wondering of where the person is now...something died or never was
It is not a song about loosing someone to another, or to death (as the film clip might imply) but to someone just drifting away. Perhaps the 'expectation' was that it would rain, that it would be more upsetting and this is a surprise. It is bitter-sweet, but the chorus has a sense of 'freedom' to it...or revelation. Perhaps she thought it would be more traumatic, but the relationship just drifted away and it is left with a bit of a hollow feeling...
Obviously complex and many layered, one can read into it what one wills...the last lines though are enigmatic and the lack of real 'reason' (death, rival) is striking.
I have an interest to the music. This is a very interesting musical effect. This is very much a 'major key' song and yet, it has such melancholy. The opening chord and key (E) alternates on the words "ever make you wonder" alternating between the 'tonic' and the maj7th a step below. Often such harmony sounds sickly sweet, but here the dissonance of the E and Eb is highlighted and unnerving.
Particularly effective is how the choruses and verses end on the IV chord A. This give you that classic 'amen' IV-I cadence back to the next section and an uneasy unresolved but not tense pause. The result of the next section is like an gentle exhalation or sigh of resignation. It resolves but yet, exclaims "hey" and again winds its way again.
Anyway, always appealed to me. The song was written my "Mark Batson, Edward Male Jonathon" the former, a very successful and varied songwriter from the USA working a lot with DrDre (Eminem, 50 cent) and for James blunt, beyonce and many others...a very varied writer. The sophistication of a professional writer shows in this over many of the 'singer songwriters' that will often simply conform to an 'expected' or at least, lessor sophistication in writing both music and lyrics.
Regardless of how one might understand the song, it is beautiful and many layered and certainly has... even if a literal meaning is harder to 'pin down' this is often the hallmark of a truly great song. It's also a song that 'creeps' into one consciousness and not an obvious 'hit' but did make #2 when released in australia.
A similar song from Oz, Matt Finish's "Short Note" also exploited these major key things in interesting ways and with similarly debatable and enigmatic lyrics.
I've always loved this song and songs and lyrics 'mean' different things depending on how it moves you, the place and time you heard it, a 'turn of phrase' and all those things. Often there is is irony and in music there is often contradictions, it's not just lyrics.
This song always struck me as being not only beautiful but 'unusual' in that way...
The 'key' is perhaps the 'outro' lyrics that enigmatically drift out of the song at the end...
he's on the buses and the aeroplanes
with some groceries and a sleeping bag
Contrary to the video clip, I think and may even have heard that is the loss of a 'love' through drugs or mental illness and decline. "i live a lie","believing that you are mine"...as is pointed out is like a love unrequited, not returned. That one would pretend to 'sleep' rather than hear or care. Or perhaps, they just went backpacking LOL and I sense a wondering of where the person is now...something died or never was
It is not a song about loosing someone to another, or to death (as the film clip might imply) but to someone just drifting away. Perhaps the 'expectation' was that it would rain, that it would be more upsetting and this is a surprise. It is bitter-sweet, but the chorus has a sense of 'freedom' to it...or revelation. Perhaps she thought it would be more traumatic, but the relationship just drifted away and it is left with a bit of a hollow feeling...
Obviously complex and many layered, one can read into it what one wills...the last lines though are enigmatic and the lack of real 'reason' (death, rival) is striking.
I have an interest to the music. This is a very interesting musical effect. This is very much a 'major key' song and yet, it has such melancholy. The opening chord and key (E) alternates on the words "ever make you wonder" alternating between the 'tonic' and the maj7th a step below. Often such harmony sounds sickly sweet, but here the dissonance of the E and Eb is highlighted and unnerving.
Particularly effective is how the choruses and verses end on the IV chord A. This give you that classic 'amen' IV-I cadence back to the next section and an uneasy unresolved but not tense pause. The result of the next section is like an gentle exhalation or sigh of resignation. It resolves but yet, exclaims "hey" and again winds its way again.
Anyway, always appealed to me. The song was written my "Mark Batson, Edward Male Jonathon" the former, a very successful and varied songwriter from the USA working a lot with DrDre (Eminem, 50 cent) and for James blunt, beyonce and many others...a very varied writer. The sophistication of a professional writer shows in this over many of the 'singer songwriters' that will often simply conform to an 'expected' or at least, lessor sophistication in writing both music and lyrics.
Regardless of how one might understand the song, it is beautiful and many layered and certainly has... even if a literal meaning is harder to 'pin down' this is often the hallmark of a truly great song. It's also a song that 'creeps' into one consciousness and not an obvious 'hit' but did make #2 when released in australia.
A similar song from Oz, Matt Finish's "Short Note" also exploited these major key things in interesting ways and with similarly debatable and enigmatic lyrics.