English Summer Rain

imho, this song's about depression:

"Always stays the same, nothing ever changes."

when you're depressed you live in apathy, whatever happens around you doesn't seem to affect you, your feelings or anything. nothing triggers you, nothing can make you feel better.

"English Summer Rain seems to last for ages."

summer rain is clearly something to identify depression with. i don't know if it's an idiom or whatever, i don't even know why they chose 'english' over any other possible word, but when it's summer and it starts raining, it seems like it lasts forever: you're trapped in your house and end up doing nothing at all. summer is boring, but if it rains things get worse and everything seems to last longer.

Then we have:

"Hold your breath and count to 10. Then fall apart and start again."

to me, this recall the fact that, when you're in some kind of depression, you tend to do things mechanically. you're there, telling yourself you should do something but your depression keeps you there and holds you back from what you should do. so you start living mechanically, you go on because 'it's what you do' even tho you don't feel anything at all. and you happen to fall, to do something wrong, to fail in something, but you've already reached that point in your illness where nothing affects you at all, so you just keep walking, only taking with you your apathy.

That's it, and it's just my interpretation of the song, i mean, it could be completely wrong, but still ;)

A guy meets a beautiful girl who doesn't care about him. So he tries to talk to her but nothing ever changes...

Yeah, Placebo's songs have featured in a couple of films:

Every You Every Me - Cruel Intentions 20th Century Boy - Can't remember lol

English Summer Rain...probably my all-time favourite Placebo song, well the new version is anyway. In the version that was on the ESR singles and on Once More With Feeling, while Brian is singing 'Start Again, Start Again' over and over again, there is also a voice in the background whining much like The Bitter End. This voice is saying something like:

'And I can't sleep without Your breathing And I can't breath each Time your leaving Please...you won't stay away Won't you come back to me someday...'

To me, this is implying that the guy they are singing about (presumably Brian) has just been dumped by a girl and has tried to live without her, but that his life is empty, bland and 'routine' since she has left, and he can't accept that she has gone. In the end, he resorts to telling himself that she hasn't gone forever and will come back to him one day.

In the animated video (which doesn't actually have anything to do with Placebo themselves, it was made by a South African college student), there is a quick shot of the guy with a red-headed girl laying on top of him. This is the memory of her he is having.

Again, just my interpretation...

I think he's singing about an endless cycle of rain... Especially in england where it rains alot, even in summer. This cycle never changes. "fall apart and start again"

i think its about love...how even though it ends..you just keep trying over and over

such a sexy song! n it doesnt always rain in england!

i think its bout a guy that likes a gal but she doesnt notice him etc

I think it's about being bored or sexualy frustrated "Always stays the same, nothing ever changes" seems to refer to monotomous boredom and receinving nothing new. The rain, I believe, refers to sex, and its stereotypical that it it always rains in England and is absolutly freezing and uncomfortable and stays the same.

Yeah of course it's about rain and english weather, it's what it's the metaphor for that counts. If you watch the animated video you see the guy sitting upside down on his couch to releave strss or boredom, the most viable aspect is that it's about lack of sex and being frustrated.

Yeah, the endless cycle of the rain in england is like the endless cycle of the "gal" not liking him and his life sucking. This song is what got me into Placebo.