Lyrics for Return as interpreted by qshapadooy

Return Lyrics
Now its years since your body went flat and even memories of that
are all think and dull, all gravel and glass. But who needs them
now -- displaced they're easily more safe -- the worst of it now: I
can't remember your face.

Return.

For a while, with the vertigo cured, we were alive -- we were pure.
The void took the shape of all that you were, but years take their
toll, and things get bent into shape... Antiseptic and tired, I can't
remember your face.

Return.

You were supposed to grow old. Reckless, unfrightened, and old,
you were supposed to grow old.

Return. You were supposed to return.



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sedated1985
10-07-2002

 Rated  0 
I feel like if me and my boyfriend broke up, and a few years later i'd be thinking them things about him. about how you were supposed to grow old, and return, and how ya can't remeber his face.

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Statbucksbabe28
03-09-2003

 Rated  0 
this song is about damian's friend, timmery, who committed suicide. also, the tattoo of a star on his arm has a "T" inside it for her.
this is my favorite OKgo song.

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stellaluna1125
03-19-2003

 Rated  0 
this song is amazing. "you were supposed to grow old" is just one of those lines that leave you speachless.

statbucksbabe28, thanks for the info on the song, i always suspected that it was about somebody who had died, but i never knew who.

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FrostedMiniWheat05
03-23-2003

 Rated  0 
Didn't know this song had anything to do with suicide.. but it's still my fav song on that cd

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fuzzyslipperz869
03-23-2003

 Rated  0 
when correy told me it was about suicide it all made sense. it's sad to begin with (the song that is) but that makes it twice as sad. the "i can't remember your face" and "you were supposed to grow old/return" so poigant and it just plucks at your heart strings!

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Ramones_Reject
04-09-2003

 Rated  0 
I knew it was about someones death/ or suicide but thanks for telling us the real deal Statbucksbabe28. yeah my fave part is..."the worst of it now: I
can't remember your face." and "You were supposed to grow old" i agree this song hits and u and ur just like "wow" i get chills when i hear "u were supposed to grow old" plus this band is amazing very talented and original

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darianess
04-15-2003

 Rated  0 
Yeah, I knew this song was about Damian's friend who committed suicide. She was only 21 I believe. Hence the "you were supposed to grow old" line. I love that line so much. It makes me feel a lot.

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norabora182
04-29-2003

 Rated  0 
thats deep man. i think my favorite line on this song is "return, you were supposed to return" dis is totally 1 of my favorite okgo songz tho

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Lorrie
05-18-2004

 Rated  0 
I heard somewhere that if a song makes you shiver, then it's a good song. This song makes me shiver everytime I here it.

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onemessedzebra
06-24-2004

 Rated  +1 
"Yeah, this song is about Timory Hyde, a good friend of the singer, Damian, and mine. She fell out of a third-story window on her birthday. She was at a party, leaning against a window, and a friend came up to her and gave her a big hug. The window gave out and they fell 3 stories to the driveway. The friend lived, she did not. That song tears me to pieces, esp. when Damian sings 'You were supposed to grow old.'"

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ChubbyPrincess
04-11-2005

 Rated  +1 
the line i love so damn much in this song is "and the worst of it now: I can't remember your face".. the way damian kulash sings this... just so overwhelming!

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sharpflowers
10-01-2005

 Rated  0 
I thought it was about someone who died
A compelling song. :)

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sheslikeohsoemo
01-03-2006

 Rated  0 
i'm not sure the falling out of a window thing really makes sense? sounds kind of made up. suicide i can understand. i dunno. it really does give me shivers. i'll have to look it up

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megbap
02-20-2006

 Rated  0 
I love this song.
There's something haunting about it. The first time I heard it, I thought that it was likely inspired by something tragic. The death of a friend makes perfect sense, whether it was suicide or accidental death.
OK Go continues to impress me.

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shoesarecool
03-30-2006

 Rated  0 
This song actually IS about Damian's friend who fell out of a third-story window (as if onemessedzebra's quote didn't prove that.) She went to Brown with him and her parents created a scholarship in memory of her. Here's an obituary for the skeptics: "Timory Hyde '98, Providence; April 19, of injuries suffered in an accidental fall from an apartment window. A music concentrator, she played the flute, guitar, and piano, and wrote folk songs."

Other songs about her are okgo's T's Song, and Ted Leo & The Pharmacists' Timorous Me.

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MochaFudge
09-10-2006

 Rated  0 
"For a while, with the vertigo cured, we were alive -- we were pure.
The void took the shape of all that you were"

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nostabenitsirhc
12-28-2006

 Rated  0 
i thought it was about someone who had died, and you all have confirmed this

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nhyde
01-21-2007

 Rated  +1 
I just heard a song that reminded me of my sister Timory, so I googled her. She was indeed a good friend of Damien's and fell out of a window at a party on (not for) her birthday. I'd like to set something striaght. She did not commit suicide. We were very close and I can say with assurance that she was a very positive person and a fighter. I saw the window she fell from and talked to numerous eye witnesses, and heard from the poor fellow she pulled out with her as she tried to maintain her balance. She was also a very accomplished musician and singer. I suspect you'd know her name as well had she not died before her time.

Oh, and I agree that the song is beautiful. Ted Leo also wrote a song about her called "Timmorous me." You may not take my word for it, but if two people like that write a song about a girl, you know she must of been something special. (coincedentally I knew Ted in college and he met my sister through his brother completely independantly of me - in fact he didn't know she and I were related until after she died).

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shorty101help
05-09-2007

 Rated  0 
nhyde, Timory was your sister?! i feel so sad for you. And i know Damian misses her too since he has a tattoo on his arm which is a T inside a star. This song is so sad now that i know what it's about. i have the recording of Last December on my computer and let me tell you, Timory had an AMAZING voice. and i agree with Damian, she was supposed to grow old.

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misst
09-29-2008

 Rated  0 
wow, sad. this whole time i pictured somone being pissed at themselves for ruining their own life. (by partying, wasting away, or whatever) And now they're at a point where they have realized that they fell off track in life, and they can't get back on it. They want their old self to come back, or "return," so that they can be happy with their life again. However, they don't even remember who they used to be ("i can't remember your face"). So, now they are at wits end and they are so unhappy with the person they have become that they feel all that is left for them is to die, so they won't grow old like they were supposed to. Still, they beg themself to find the old person they used to be.

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Regulus117
12-04-2008

 Rated  0 
Reminds me of my father. I lost him when I was fifteen. My aunt and I took his death hard, and I'm trying to get her to listen to it.
This is possibly the best song about someone close to you dying. It's so beautiful I either cry or come close to it.

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Memory
mlfm256
12-29-2008

 Rated  0 
i always think about my grandma when i listen to this song. she died.
Like the repeated line "i can't remember your face" i feel like that sometimes, like i have to see like pictures, and stuff. And the ending just makes me all sad, just the way damian sings it.

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Song Meaning
paige7390
02-13-2009

 Rated  0 
I correlate this song with my dad, who suffered a massive stroke in late 2007 and died about a month ago. I'm happy to learn that my interpretation of the song was somewhat close to the actual one; loss of a loved one. This song holds a place in my heart.

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Memory
benzilla5000
09-06-2011

 Rated  0 
Reckless and unfrightened and *bold

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General Comment




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