In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
You may tire of me as our December sun is setting 'cause I'm not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below
Who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for
Both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident
On the back of a motorbike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight, leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete in the city where we still reside
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea, like navy men,
'Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides like brothers on a hotel bed
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below
Who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for
Both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident
On the back of a motorbike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight, leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete in the city where we still reside
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea, like navy men,
'Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides like brothers on a hotel bed
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Standing On The Edge Of Summer
Thursday
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
This song is a masterpiece. I had no idea that it was written by Walla, I assumed Gibbard was the author due to it's similar metaphorical wordsmithery.
At times I'm surprised at the observations people make on this website as they so often seem to deviate from my initial contemplations. My thoughts tend to be more abstract and fragmented I feel, thus leading to alternate conclusions about meaning. Thus it was with this song. While I must admit, the common interpretations result in a greater level of overall clarity,I can't resist adhering to my original musings.
Luckily, after glancing through some of the responses I found that I wasn't quite so isolated.I resonated most with Overmyhead's response near the beginning of the thread. I felt that the song was talking about one man. The relational aspect between two people appears to me to be at the periphery of the songs general message. I like to think it's about getting older, but still fealing youthful inside. It's the dichotomy that exists between your inner soul and your outer body. As the man gets older he begins to recoginze that his body is a deceptive fascade no longer matching his soul. He looks in the mirror and the person who he sees is different than how he thinks of himself. It's like he's trapped within himself. He feels young, strong, and vibrant, but the reflection disagrees with all of it. He senses the constriction in the same way one who anticipates a removal of gravity to let them fly would. I also feel like the song is about imagination. The man's powerful imaginative being is unable to penetrate the reality of his situation, which contains absolutely no mechanism for flight. The last line seems nearly haunting to me. I imagine a man sitting on a hotel room bed looking across from himself at a mirror on the other side. He says goodnite to himself (his reflection in the mirror) which he now thinks of like a brother. Within the last line he comes to terms with the seperation between his soul and body, but takes the notion to new awkward heights of dissassociation by imagining this different entity that stares back at him as a brother who he is familiar with but sepperate from.
@SteveOatman Brilliant. You nailed it.