The song is about how "honesty" can be used to say things not specifically about the person you're with but that essentially do communicate your negative feelings towards him or her in a veiled fashion. "Don't you want me to stay? Make a rocking horse getaway" he is given signals that the partner doesn't want to be in a relationship anymore but he isn't leaving. "Collide into me, I could do with a fight" he obviously wants a direct confrontation (maybe to address the problems) that is being avoided by the partner (that is obviously done with him) so he has to ask if "does the honesty deceive?", is "honesty" (e.g. the negative feelings about other seemingly unrelated things) being used to signal something else?
The chorus is about how the aforementioned "honesty" is used by the partner in a different setting, a party. The partner probably doesn't want to be there or at least not with the person she's with and is being "honest" about everyone and everything so he implores "take it out on me" and not on everyone else, "cause all the honesty shut this place down". The honesty is making everyone else feel bad/weird thus "shutting the place down".
"The broken hearts of my neighborhood" alludes to how everyone around them has had their feelings hurt because of the "honesty" being used this way and how the couple is now being shut out of other social engagements ("with the boarded up windows and the closing sales") until they solve their problems or break up.
The song is about how "honesty" can be used to say things not specifically about the person you're with but that essentially do communicate your negative feelings towards him or her in a veiled fashion. "Don't you want me to stay? Make a rocking horse getaway" he is given signals that the partner doesn't want to be in a relationship anymore but he isn't leaving. "Collide into me, I could do with a fight" he obviously wants a direct confrontation (maybe to address the problems) that is being avoided by the partner (that is obviously done with him) so he has to ask if "does the honesty deceive?", is "honesty" (e.g. the negative feelings about other seemingly unrelated things) being used to signal something else?
The chorus is about how the aforementioned "honesty" is used by the partner in a different setting, a party. The partner probably doesn't want to be there or at least not with the person she's with and is being "honest" about everyone and everything so he implores "take it out on me" and not on everyone else, "cause all the honesty shut this place down". The honesty is making everyone else feel bad/weird thus "shutting the place down".
"The broken hearts of my neighborhood" alludes to how everyone around them has had their feelings hurt because of the "honesty" being used this way and how the couple is now being shut out of other social engagements ("with the boarded up windows and the closing sales") until they solve their problems or break up.
*Originally posted by me on Genius.