This has been my favourite song since I first heard it in 2011. My interpretation seems to be very different to everyone else who has commented.
His girlfriend is leaving for uni, and they are staying together. The first verse he talks about her leaving and tells her to 'hold her lips so tightly' because she can never be alone. He's telling her not to find someone else, because she will be on her own, and he doesn't think she can wait for them to be together again. And its 'just the bones she's made of', her personality, that draws people to her, and it won't be hard for her to find company away from him.
The chorus is her speaking back, laughing and what he's saying because she thinks it'll be easy, how hard is it for her to be alone? He thinks she's being naive by thinking he will always be there to hold her. He thinks it's inevitable that she will find someone else when they're apart.
The second verse is after she has left, and he can feel her silence. He seems cynical that she has left with the relationship very much alive 'oh go leave these fires burning'. Then he warns her about all the guys at uni that will try and sleep with her 'boys that search for love in your room' and he justifies himself by saying that 'lust is just a child's game' then calls her naive again by saying she 'were always late to bloom'.
Then the third verse, which is slightly different, she has now found a new lover, just as he worried. He reminds himself that she loves fully and without restraint, as if she is loving for the first time 'you love like you've always been lonely' and 'you love him with all of your body'. He has accepted that change, and tells her that she loves her new man the way she loved him, like it will never end, as in the previous chorus, is saying she is naive, but nonetheless, she loves like its forever.
Then the outro, he is telling her he hasn't moved since she left. He is still waiting for her in the same place 'small town bar we know', just like when she left, but she's not coming back and he is has been left behind 'out here in the cold'. It was inevitable that this was going to happen, and he knew it, but she insisted that the relationship would work and therefore kept it long-distance, which he waited for her, not knowing when she would find someone else.
I might see it this particular way because this song was released just as I was leaving for uni, and I was leaving my girlfriend behind, and we were very much in love. We stayed together long-distance, but I was much more optimistic than her, because she was in the same old familiar place, where we shared so much time, now empty without me, just waiting for me to return. It's very plausible that Ben had a girlfriend who was leaving for uni.
This has been my favourite song since I first heard it in 2011. My interpretation seems to be very different to everyone else who has commented.
His girlfriend is leaving for uni, and they are staying together. The first verse he talks about her leaving and tells her to 'hold her lips so tightly' because she can never be alone. He's telling her not to find someone else, because she will be on her own, and he doesn't think she can wait for them to be together again. And its 'just the bones she's made of', her personality, that draws people to her, and it won't be hard for her to find company away from him.
The chorus is her speaking back, laughing and what he's saying because she thinks it'll be easy, how hard is it for her to be alone? He thinks she's being naive by thinking he will always be there to hold her. He thinks it's inevitable that she will find someone else when they're apart.
The second verse is after she has left, and he can feel her silence. He seems cynical that she has left with the relationship very much alive 'oh go leave these fires burning'. Then he warns her about all the guys at uni that will try and sleep with her 'boys that search for love in your room' and he justifies himself by saying that 'lust is just a child's game' then calls her naive again by saying she 'were always late to bloom'.
Then the third verse, which is slightly different, she has now found a new lover, just as he worried. He reminds himself that she loves fully and without restraint, as if she is loving for the first time 'you love like you've always been lonely' and 'you love him with all of your body'. He has accepted that change, and tells her that she loves her new man the way she loved him, like it will never end, as in the previous chorus, is saying she is naive, but nonetheless, she loves like its forever.
Then the outro, he is telling her he hasn't moved since she left. He is still waiting for her in the same place 'small town bar we know', just like when she left, but she's not coming back and he is has been left behind 'out here in the cold'. It was inevitable that this was going to happen, and he knew it, but she insisted that the relationship would work and therefore kept it long-distance, which he waited for her, not knowing when she would find someone else.
I might see it this particular way because this song was released just as I was leaving for uni, and I was leaving my girlfriend behind, and we were very much in love. We stayed together long-distance, but I was much more optimistic than her, because she was in the same old familiar place, where we shared so much time, now empty without me, just waiting for me to return. It's very plausible that Ben had a girlfriend who was leaving for uni.