Tihs song is so beautiful. Tihs songs is about a guy doing everything to get the girl that he loves.

Why he is doign this is still kind of confusing to me. Did he cheat and now he wants to win her back however he can? Is she poison to him that eats away at him but he loves her regardless?

Maybe this is one of those relationships where both people do more harm to each other than good. In the end, one of them will realize that it is better off to let go and move on in order to keep their sanity.

he finds himself in the struggle constantly and keeps trying to get out of it. it turns out the same everytime. like a carousel. this can b applied to any situation like that. hence the title sick cycle carousel.

to me this song is about life... always taking unexpected turns and you never know whats going to happen... or it could be about a girl... whose playing hard to get

For me, this song has a different meaning cause it's my ex that had send it to me. And if you look at the lyrics, it could be about a boy who broke up with his girlfriend, and sometimes he regrets, other times he doesn't really know... It's like if he were lost, if he doesn't really know what he wants. His relation doesn't work out so he tries to get apart from the girl but the truth is that he loves her no matter what...

just to clear things up, yes most of the band members ARE christian, but they do not lable themselves as a christian because they want the fans to be able to interpret the songs how they want to.

this song, obviously reaches out to a lot of people in different ways. this song, in my interpretation, basically describes my life. i come from a family of alcoholics and drug addicts, and it's pretty much a family curse. my life, and my family, seems to be this sick cycle that doesn't end. and I, inheritting the addictive trait from my family, struggle a lot with giving into the addictions. because I do drink and smoke, recreationally, i sometimes feel as if i'm being sucked into the cycle, and although i try to overcome it, I feel as if it's never going to end.

"'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

I tried to earn my way
I tried to change this mind
You better believe that
I tried to beat this"
..I think that the first part of the bridge is talking about giving into temptation, and being pulled into this 'sick cyle' .. and the second half of the bridge is expressing how one tries to overcome everything.

"I never thought I'd end up here
Never thought I'd be standing where I am
I guess I kind of thought
It would be easier than this"
..I think this verse represents the innocence that leaves you at a younger age, an age when you think that you're invincible and can overcome any obstacle that comes your way. and as one hits reality, he or she realizes they were wrong, and nothing is as simple as it seems.


and the chorus just explains how the cycle works, and only the person going through it can end it.

OK, I have to be honest that i'm pretty certain what this song is about. I mean, if you have seen the music video for this it's not really rocket science.
I'm pretty sure this song is about bulimia/anorexic eating disorders. The music video to this song shows the band singing and watching this little anorexic, i'm talking SUPER thin boy running around in circles only to end up back in his bed where it stated. I think it signifies the trauma and suffering those with eating disorders have- in this case bulimia. In it's way it basically is a sick cycle carousel, eating, throwing back up and so on.

"I tried to see how low
I could get down to the ground"

I think he is saying he tried to see how low his wight could go before it turned to extreme, but then he "tried to beat this".

Anyway, thats my view on it, and if you havnt seen the music video watch it, it's quite moving.

I just love lifehouse and great voice of jason. you guys should relax and don't freak out 'bout some words. I had this whole idea of better luck next time...for example...and thought it would go about finding your luck in life....then I read some comments about it and figured it goes about his father...I was so wrong..but every time I listen to that song again it means more to me than just a song for his father..well anyway...you can all interpret in a way you want it...still this (sick cycle..) is song made by some guys expressing their feelings/experiences/whatevah...one of you says..ow it is about god..the other says it is the problem with his father....I guess we will never know for sure..unless Jason explains it personally!

I've found one source that claims the song is a struggle about Jason's girlfriend, but there is no validity to that source and the song, in its entirety, doesn't seem to fit that context anyway.

I'm fairly certain that Jason wrote this song about his struggle with sin. There was a two-plus-year period of my life when I listened to nothing but Christian music, so I know how to recognize a faith-inspired song when I hear it. At least the first three songs of "No Name Face," as well as the last, are about God.

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.

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".

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.