The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
It was only one hour ago
It was all so different then
Nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did
This flesh and bone
Is just the way that we are tied in
But there's no one home
I grieve, for you
You leave, me
So hard to move on
Still loving what's gone
They say life carries on
Carries on and on and on and on
The news that truly shocks
Is the empty, empty page
While the final rattle rocks
It's empty, empty cage
And I can't handle this
I grieve, for you
You leave, me
Let it out and move on
Missing what's gone
They say life carries on
They say life carries on and on and on
Life carries on in the people I meet
In everyone that's out on the street
In all the dogs and cats
In the flies and rats
In the rot and the rust
In the ashes and the dust
Life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Just the car that we ride in
The home we reside in
The face that we hide in
The way we are tied in
As life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Did I dream this belief
Or did I believe this dream?
Now I will find relief
I grieve
It was all so different then
Nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did
This flesh and bone
Is just the way that we are tied in
But there's no one home
I grieve, for you
You leave, me
So hard to move on
Still loving what's gone
They say life carries on
Carries on and on and on and on
The news that truly shocks
Is the empty, empty page
While the final rattle rocks
It's empty, empty cage
And I can't handle this
I grieve, for you
You leave, me
Let it out and move on
Missing what's gone
They say life carries on
They say life carries on and on and on
Life carries on in the people I meet
In everyone that's out on the street
In all the dogs and cats
In the flies and rats
In the rot and the rust
In the ashes and the dust
Life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Just the car that we ride in
The home we reside in
The face that we hide in
The way we are tied in
As life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on
Did I dream this belief
Or did I believe this dream?
Now I will find relief
I grieve
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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.
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
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This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Dreamwalker
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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.
No Surprises
Radiohead
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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.
I was just rereading "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis and came across a very familiar line... The books is an edited version of Lewis' journal in which he copes with the death of his wife, Joy Gresham. Lewis, in case you didn't know, was (and is) a popular Christian apologetic. But in this book he questions his faith. He says at one point that his faith, prior to his wife's death, must have been like a house of cards which hadn't taken a real blow. He worries that even as he writes, he may be constructing a new "card-house," rationalizing and distancing himself, etc. And he writes,
"But there are two questions here. In which sense may it be a house of cards? Because the things I am believing are only a dream, or because I only dream that I believe them?"
Clearly Peter Gabriel took some inspiration from Lewis. That line was always my favorite in the song and now I love it even more.
People are completely missing the point calling this song depressing. It's about dealing with grief and loss and coming out of it the other side. The uptempo section is really life-affirming and positive. That's why this is such a good song when dealing with grief. One of PG's best. Wish he'd done it live.
@bixieface I agree, this song actually gave me some positive perspective about the death of loved ones. Of course the pain is real, and it's hard, but the upbeat section taught me that you shouldn't wallow in sorrow. Life is bigger than any of us, it/you and your loved one carrie on and on. Stardust we are, we're meant to die, but we carry on in the people we meet, everyone that's out in the street, in the dogs and cats, the flies and rats, the rot and the rust and in the ashes and the dust. In that sense nobody is ever truly gone....
In my opinion this song is definitely about loss in the sense of death. Personally, I know when I lost someone I kept saying to myself that 1,5,8 hours ago they were alive and everything was different. He goes on to mention the denial part of grief where it simply just does not feel real. You go home and all of their things are still in the same place and it does not look different it looks like it did yesterday.
The lyrics continue on to talk about the body, I believe. If you believe in a soul and in heaven or whatever then when you look at the body it truly is just something that "tied" the soul into it. Though the body remains, "no one is home" because the soul no longer resides within it.
The lyrics then talk about the difficulty of moving on when there's still so much love. The next part of the song is still confusing to me as to exactly what the artist meant. Personally, I'm thinking that it's about the funeral in which the body is buried. When the coffin is dropped into the ground perhaps that is the "empty cage" again because the body is empty itself. Funerals are definitely difficult, so exclaiming that he can't handle it sounds like that's what he's writing about.
Then he goes on to sound more painful, and he sings that we have to let it out and move on, which is what he is trying to do by raising the volume of his voice.
Eventually, life does indeed carry on, but we never truly recover completely. We have days where we are upbeat but then we go right back to the pain we've always felt but hid so well. We put on a face during the day and at night when we are alone we take that face off and again continue to grieve.
Peter said on the Larry King show he rote the song I Grieve when his two daughters were in NYC on 911 and he couldn't get in touch with them
@martyone dailymotion.com/video/x3i9bn
I love this song... it makes me wanna cry
This is a great song. It's very relaxing. Thanks.
b
as morbid as it may sound, i want this song played at my funeral! it made me bawl my eyes out, when i heard it on the movie 'city of angels'
this song makes me think of my uncle...i cried my eyes out..good song..as frou frou put it "music is worthless unless it makes a complete stranger break down and cry"
This song is so depressing, but so beautiful at the same time. You can hear the pain in his voice as he sings "I grieve for you...you leave me..so hard to move on." He is singing about a loss, a loss he never regains. What's lost is utterly, and recoverably, lost forever. Is he singing about a break up of a relationship, the death of someone close, who knows. What he does say is life goes on. This song means so much to me.
"Life (being) just the car that we ride in, the home we reside in, the way we are tied in, (etc.)" those metaphors for the fleetingness of life is so powerfully and poetically expressed in those lyrics. What a deep and beautiful song!