Broken Promise Lyrics

Lyric discussion by StoriesinSongs.com 

Cover art for Broken Promise lyrics by Placebo

It's important to know that this song is meant to be a dialogue between two persons.

The first verse belongs to character 1 who has broken a very important promise (possibly adultery).

After that character 2 takes over and we experience how much pain they feel.

This promise must have been something very dear to them (like wedding vows).

And character 2 can't accept the apology of character 1, because words don't mean anything anymore. A promise was a promise. A promise was broken and words lose their meaning.

The lines 'We'll rise above this, we'll cry about this' are a very bad apology indeed.

They seem like someone justifies their actions by saying: At least we can grow stronger out of this complication.

And that's insane.

But it's also crazy that character 2 wants to retaliate.

Pretending to love someone (Hate masquerading as love) is the worst form of love there is. It's the negation of the negation.

And the threat: 'I'll wait my turn to terrorize you. Watch you burn.' is heavy.

Of course, the tables have turned, but very dramatically.

Character 2 loses it and in the chorus, we get a feeling of how character 2 wants character 1 to burn in hell. It's so aggressive.

My Interpretation