This is the first day of my life
Swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours was the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
And I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I'd let you know
Yeah, these things take forever, I especially am slow
But I realized that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning?
And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up

And you said
"This is the first day of my life
I'm glad I didn't die before I met you
But now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy"

So if you wanna be with me
With these things there's no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery, ah-ha, mm-hmm

Besides, maybe this time is different
I mean, I really think you like me


Lyrics submitted by oh,and_theblues., edited by valiargentina

First Day Of My Life Lyrics as written by Conor Oberst

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Songtrust Ave

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

First Day of My Life song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

319 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +25
    General Comment

    "I'm glad I didn't die before I met you" and i'm glad I didn't die before i heard this song

    aniotaon June 23, 2003   Link
  • +12
    General Comment

    This song is so fucking amazing. SOOO amazing. Wow.

    I wish I could feel like this. It makes me not want to kill myself in hopes that he'll show up and be my saving grace.

    Surfpicoon June 27, 2003   Link
  • +8
    General Comment

    I totally understand what you mean but i took it as he wants to work at a steady relationship that is gaurenteed. You can buy as many lottery tickets as you want but there is a 99% chance you won't win, whereas if you worked you would get a steady pay check. Same thing with relationships, It would be much more "economical" to get a job and save up money, accumulating cash rather than to sit around doing nothing but hoping to win the powerball which probably won't happen

    Arienetteon June 04, 2004   Link
  • +6
    General Comment

    this is my new most favorite song in the whole world, and i have never been a big fan. \"But I\'d rather be working for a pay check Than waiting to win the lottery.\" that line kills me.

    dont leave me because youre not sure this is the best you can get, work with me on making this the best.

    i didnt think anyone understood what love really is.

    kicksomethingon January 21, 2005   Link
  • +6
    My Opinion

    Light. Innocent. Straightforward.

    One of my favourite songs of all time.

    I understand how music is and should be interpretated individually, but when i sometimes read the comments on this site, i wonder if it has to be that difficult. And if - for the writers - love is also difficult.

    My favourite line: "Yours was the first face that I saw I think I was blind before I met you"

    This feeling of finally seeing somebody. Really seeing. Not just physically. Feeling somebody. Breathing somebody. Whispering somebody's name like a prayer. Finally everything becomes wonderfully clear, the colours are brighter, the birds' song sweeter.

    This is not retrospective at all. This young man is in love. Right now. And deeply. He doesn't know where this is going, he obviously has made some experiences in life, but right now in this moment he is in love and feels reborn. Just like the first day of his life..

    Whatiamon October 21, 2012   Link
  • +4
    General Comment

    Well after listening to this song a bunch of times i think i might have a idea of what exactly it's about. At least what i think.

    Ok, so im gonna explain it from the point of a guy who loves a girl is telling it. Anyways

    It sounds like the guy was in this relationship with a girl who he really loves. However he found a few things wrong with her that he didn't like. So he leaves her like he's done in the past with other relationships. While away it suddenly dawns upon him that he really loves the girl and that he's not gonna let some minor flaws get in the way and thats where the song starts. "This is the first day of my life. Swear I was born right in the doorway. I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed. They're spreading blankets on the beach" It's the first day of his life because this is the moment he finally grows up and realizes what loving someone really is.

    Yours was the first face that I saw I think I was blind before I met you I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been But I know where I want to go

    Here he's just saying the girls face is the first one that he really saw with this new understanding of love. The first person who made him see what love really is. "blind before i met you" before he met the girl he never understood love and was essentially blind to it. the next part he's just saying how his blindness for love allowed him to get put off course and get lost and not know where's he's at or where he was.

    So I thought I'd let you know That these things take forever, I especially am slow But I realized how I need you And I wondered if I could come home

    Now he's just telling the girl about how he's changed even though it took him awhile. And he's saying that he can't be without her and wants to be back with her.

    Remember the time you drove all night Just to meet me in the morning? And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed You felt as if you just woke up

    Here he's recalling the time when she left him, but then came back. He's now realizing that she must have had a similar experience with understanding love even though he didn't understand it at the time (thought it was strange). "I thought it was strange, you said everything changed". Instead of saying she was previously blind like he did, she described it as finally waking up.

    Next part's pretty basic. He talks about how she said "this is the first day of my life". Exactly what he said earlier when talking about his new understanding of what love is. After that the next bit is just him remembering what she had told him about how she loved him.

    So if you want to be with me With these things there's no telling We'll just have to wait and see But I'd rather be working for a paycheck Than waiting to win the lottery

    This is my favorite part of the song. Here he's just telling the girl that if she still wants to be with him he wants to be with her, but that it won't be easy. And he has no clue what instore because thats how relationships/ love are. "We'll just have to wait and see" he's saying that while he has no clue whats in store he wants to go through it together. "but I'd rather be working for a paycheck. Than waiting to win the lottery" the last part he's just emphasizes the fact that he would rather work through the ups and downs of this relationship with this girl. As opposed to just sitting back and not working on the relationship at all and just hoping that he gets lucky and the relationship lasts. It's kind of a it's no where you go, but how you get there situation.

    The last part of the song is just him simplifying things down and saying how he thinks this time, with this girl they can actually make it last. Because she really loves him like he loves her. The reason for using the word like as opposed to love is because. The guy is still kind of unsure on exactly how she feels and doesn't want to mis-read her and freak her out. Plus like i said, it sounds like the whole song is him telling the girl that he finally understands love and understands that he wants her back in his life and the ending is just him trying to be endearing and cute with using "like". Also the way Conor drags out the "me' at the end sounds like the guys trying to win the girl over or something.

    Ok well if you read all that long winded post i applaud you. Also just because i used a guy and a girl in explaining it. It doesn't mean it has to be a guy and a girl. I just used it because it was simpler.

    vikingballa32on February 14, 2009   Link
  • +4
    General Comment

    Wow...sad songs have made me cry before but this is the first song thats made me cry with happiness. Its happy and sweet and romantic but not in a fake and cheesy sort of way, its just really honest. And its so hopeful. Im going to listen to this song whenever im down and losing faith in love and all that...this makes it better :)

    xkat92xon July 24, 2009   Link
  • +3
    My Interpretation

    This reminds me so much of the film Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. If you're familiar with the movie, the blankets on the speech is a specific correlation between this song and the movie. Not to mention, what happens in the film's plot is a lot like these lyrics in most ways.

    ledhotzepperon March 02, 2013   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    This song is about starting a relationship with a clean slate. Leaving all your baggage at the door. Not letting your past affect the present.

    When you meet someone for the first time and you see all the characteristics you'd been looking for it's an energizing experience. You ask yourself, "can this time be different? Maybe this is who I've been waiting for?"

    This song doesn't necessarily have to be about meeting this person for the first time. It could be after a few dates with this person that you finally realize that you've met someone who is important. unique. special.

    Forget your pasts. put them behind you. don't be jealous, or hold grudges. move forward and give everything to the person you're with.

    Video Statuson October 22, 2008   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    I think it's funny how I know exactly what this song is saying. It's about going a meeting and becoming "sober", they call it your "birthday" (your sober date). Then it says that the same person he first saw there called him one night because she had relapsed or something to that effect, and she drove all night to him and she declared she would be sober again. And she said that she was glad her addiction didn't kill her before he came along.

    So if you want to be with me With these things there's no telling We'll just have to wait and see But I'd rather be working for a paycheck Than waiting to win the lottery

    This is saying that being with "me" would be a struggle with these things "staying clean/sober" there's no telling, you take it day by day. But its better to be getting days upon days, then to be using and hoping one day you'll stop (chances are like winning the lottery)..

    rursagaon November 24, 2010   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
Standing On The Edge Of Summer
Thursday
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.
Album art
The Night We Met
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"
Album art
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Album art
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988. "'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it." "There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Album art
Magical
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.