Recent events had me playing this song and I was legitimately surprised to find everyone here thought it was about the end of a relationship. I always thought it was about suicide.
I've known people who were suicidal, I've known people who tried to commit suicide. Even if "my door was always open" I felt like I never did enough. I didn't make it clear enough, I tried to give them too much space. I've even worried that I didn't truly love them, because I let them be in so much pain. That's what "I don't think that I ever loved you," means to me.
And after people are gone, how "the world is dying to meet you," brings to mind all the times I heard people say "I wish I'd gotten to know them better.", " I wish I'd been there for them." or even "I wish I'd gotten the chance to meet them." People never appreciate what is there until it's gone.
This verse jumps out at me especially:
Oh well church bells, they are ringing for you.
Oh and choirs are singing in red,
Oh your voice could summon the angels,
And your beauty, could waken the dead.
The imagery surrounding death here. The church bells ringing for them, the RED in the choirs. It's irony, that their voice could summon angels and their beauty could waken the dead, when they're dead themselves.
And the part about being free from their pain, many people think that by coming to others with their burdens they are holding them down, bringing pain into their life. The singer is commenting on how they're free from that burden now, but then it's quickly followed with "you have only let me down." Showing that they would rather have the pain than what they are left with. Then they lament that their door was always open. That they could have come to them but didn't. They justify this with the repeated last line.
Yeah I love with my heart and I hold it in my hands,
But you know, my hearts not yours.
In the end all we can do is be there for someone. Our hearts aren't their's, and our love for them, no matter how strong, isn't necessarily present in their own hearts. Sometimes people can't recognize how great the are, how loved they are, how much people want to help them. In the end, even if the singer should have done more for their friend, it wasn't them who made the decision to end that persons life. They were helpless.
Recent events had me playing this song and I was legitimately surprised to find everyone here thought it was about the end of a relationship. I always thought it was about suicide.
I've known people who were suicidal, I've known people who tried to commit suicide. Even if "my door was always open" I felt like I never did enough. I didn't make it clear enough, I tried to give them too much space. I've even worried that I didn't truly love them, because I let them be in so much pain. That's what "I don't think that I ever loved you," means to me.
And after people are gone, how "the world is dying to meet you," brings to mind all the times I heard people say "I wish I'd gotten to know them better.", " I wish I'd been there for them." or even "I wish I'd gotten the chance to meet them." People never appreciate what is there until it's gone.
This verse jumps out at me especially:
Oh well church bells, they are ringing for you. Oh and choirs are singing in red, Oh your voice could summon the angels, And your beauty, could waken the dead.
The imagery surrounding death here. The church bells ringing for them, the RED in the choirs. It's irony, that their voice could summon angels and their beauty could waken the dead, when they're dead themselves.
And the part about being free from their pain, many people think that by coming to others with their burdens they are holding them down, bringing pain into their life. The singer is commenting on how they're free from that burden now, but then it's quickly followed with "you have only let me down." Showing that they would rather have the pain than what they are left with. Then they lament that their door was always open. That they could have come to them but didn't. They justify this with the repeated last line.
Yeah I love with my heart and I hold it in my hands, But you know, my hearts not yours.
In the end all we can do is be there for someone. Our hearts aren't their's, and our love for them, no matter how strong, isn't necessarily present in their own hearts. Sometimes people can't recognize how great the are, how loved they are, how much people want to help them. In the end, even if the singer should have done more for their friend, it wasn't them who made the decision to end that persons life. They were helpless.