Lifehouse – Sick Cycle Carousel

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  Song Meaning:"Here's a song, about 7 years ago, in Los Angeles, California... about a relationship that I was in at the time that was kind of... on the rocks... and uh, this is a song from a really tough time period, but I'm sure... those of you who have our first record will hear the message..."

  Flag Pepsi90919on September 22, 2012   Link

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  Song Meaning:I think this song is about a relationship between a man and a woman. He does everything for her ("'Cause I tried to climb your steps,I tried to chase you down, I tried to see how low I could get down to the ground..") and she doesn't love him the way he loves her. So he basically is saying he needs to stop because it'll get him nowhere in the end..

  Flag Lifehousefan10on May 04, 2010   Link

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    I agree, yet I disagree:) I don't believe "tried to climb your steps" means that. I believe it has more to do with expectations, perhaps. Maybe there were standards set (or at least in his mind) and he kept falling short (also maybe just in his mind). Everything else sounds about right, though.

    Flag IllToast2Thaton May 18, 2012  
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  General Comment:this song is basically the story of my life haha. i think overall it is about when you keep making the same mistakes regardless the reasons, and you know its wrong but you keep doing it. and throughout this you are hurting yourself and yet still cannot seem to stop. and i am christian and i totally believe it has to do with religion i think Jason bases most of his lyrics on God but the thing that makes them so different from other christian bands or other bands in general is that you can apply their lyrics in many different ways.

  Flag LyricsLover9010on August 15, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:Havnt seen the video, or know much about thier religous preferences, but this song is so powerful in its meaning to me, and my husband's relationship. My husband is a recovering alcoholic, and i have substance problems. So, to me, it describes how i keep trying to beat my drug addiction, and fail, while watching my husband beat his.
  The first chorus describes the shame I feel while using, and asking my husband if he believes Im tired of doing it
  The bridge talks about trying to keep up, and be as succsessful in my recovery as he is, but "not being able to tame this mind" of mine, and telling him that he better believe "I tried to beat this"
  THe chourus is our fights. The same arguments, the same "Cycle" over and over again.
  
  Bulimia, Anorexia, Drug & Alcohol Addictions, and even some religous experiences are so very, very different, yet it's amazing that it takes the same artistic words to describe them.

  Flagged kalevraon August 14, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:i think its about a break up, except instead of it being the end..it just keeps going on and on, as the suggested female presence, is forever leading him on saying and doing things that would imply she still wants it and the man is doing everything, and so it cant ever stop as he cant stop loving her and allows him to walk all over her.\\ great song, i really love it!

  Flag lizylouluesleyon June 18, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:Some people have to understand that not only christians believe in god, not all christians are good peolple as not all good people are christians. Some so called "christians" are just a shame, a shame for all the rest. The most important thing in this life is NOT to be christian or to say you are christian, it is to be a good,kind,good-hearted person. If religion helps one to be that person that's great! It is exactly what religion is ment to do. If religion is just beeing used and abused as an excuse, serving a different agenda other than peace, love, equality and tolerance this is a case of religion rapists and not christians.
  
  
  
  This song is very special to me. Every single word of the lyrics is a total match to what I was going through for many years. But it's almost impossible to understand if you don't go through the same situation and certainly impossible for religion rapists to understand.
  
  That's exactly how you feel when you notice attraction to the same sex, ashamed. That's what you are taught, that's what everyone makes you believe, that's what you should be if you want to be called christian and deserve a place on the good side. So what do you do if you want to be a good person?
  There's nothing else you can do than beeing someone else than yourself, living the life of someone else, constantly lieing about your feelings hoping that one day you will learn to play this role that well that eventually you forget who you really are and what you really feel. That can go well for some time.
  You are unhappy but content, content that you don't make people that are important to you unhappy.
  
  But more and more you understand that you have put yourself on a cycle carousel. The lies, the act, make you sick but you have no choice if you don't want to make people around you unhappy. You just keep climbing the steps to freedom, trying to chase yourself down, this day, the next day, every day. If you are strong enough you keep going the same sick situation no matter how low you fall and if you fall to the ground you just stand up again and put yourself on the cycle carousel once again.
  
  Dishonesty makes you suffocate but the happiness of people around you allows you to breath and bear yourself. You try to beat this, beat yourself, but at this point you do not realisise that you are just destroying yourself, slowly and steadily. You think that if you continue climbing the steps of yourself you will earn yourself the happiness you deserve. You continue trying to change your mind, change yourself, but at some point you start losing your courage. There still is no end in sight of the steps you have been climbing for so long. You desperately try to end this but it goes on and on, over and over again.
  
  At some point you start hating yourself, more and more. You are unbearable to yourself. You start realising what you have done to yourself. You never thought you would end up like that trying to beat this. You though it would have been easier, hard, but possible. But in the end all you have done was spinning around, falling down to the ground and standing up again and again and again destroying yourself, waiting for the time to come to fall down to the ground once and for all. You realise that your only other choice is to step down from the carousel and start living your life, a real life, an honest life, a true life and not the one you created for yourself many years ago. After this expirience honesty becomes the most precious thing in the world for you. You will never never again do that to yourself.
  
  
  
  
  

  Flag RAT25on May 07, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:Hes saying that hes tried to EARN his way into heaven by doing good things. But thats not how you do it, and hes coming to that realization.

  Flag Chaiseon April 25, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:Initially thought this was about mental illness for some reason. Sin makes more sense.

  Flag Laylalon March 29, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:mokkan88, et al. have it right, this is a faith inspired song, and the meaning only becomes fully clear when it is interpreted as such. You are all free to make up your own meanings, of course, but you will miss out on what the artist is trying to communicate.
  
  The intended meaning of this song only becomes clear when you realize that this a Christian song and the unspecified "you" is God.
  
  The "sick cycle" then must be something that brings you shame before God. While many addictions would apply and fit the lyrics of the song, I am pretty sure that the "sick cycle" is sin, and the song is about trying to live a holy life.
  
  "'Cause I tried to climb your steps
  I tried to chase you down
  I tried to see how low
  I could get down to the ground"
  
  In this stanza the artist expresses his pursuit of God. The imagery here is of someone climbing the steps to a King's throne room and falling prostrate before him.
  
  The artist wants to please the king (which, for the nonchristians in here, is common reference for God), but he finds that breaking the "sick cycle" is far from easy. He is wallowing in the shame of his shortcomings, but expresses hope for his final redemption from the cycle: "Till I step down from this for good".

  Flag Muhdon February 14, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:nah. i agree with sarahmarie. yeah, if you briefly read these lyrics, it sounds like the song is about what everyone else thinks—a girl, blah blah. but really, if you know what eating disorders are like, and you read the lyrics, it makes perfect sense. and it kind of hits hard. they really are a sick, never-ending cycle.

  Flag charcoalsketchon July 19, 2007   Link

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