Lyrics for Old Apartment as interpreted by ojms

Old Apartment Lyrics
Broke into the old apartment
This is where we used to live
Broken glass, broke and hungry
Broken hearts and broken bones
This is where we used to live
Why did you paint the walls?
Why did you clean the floor?
Why did you plaster over the hole I punched in the door?

This is where we used to live

Why did you keep the mousetrap?
Why did you keep the dishrack?
These things used to be mine
I guess they still are, I want them back

Broke into the old apartment
Forty-two stairs from the street
Crooked landing, crooked landlord
Narrow laneway filled with crooks
This is where we used to live

Why did they pave the lawn?
Why did they change the locks?
Why did I have to break it, I only came here to talk
This is where we used to live

How is the neighbor downstairs?
How is her temper this year?
I turned up your TV and stomped on the floor just for fun

I know we don't live here anymore
We bought an old house on the Danforth
She loves me and her body keeps me warm
I'm happy there
But this is where we used to live

Broke into the old apartment
Tore the phone out of the wall
Only memories, fading memories
Blending into dull tableaux
I want them back

I want them back
This is where we used to live
I want them back
This is where we used to live
I want them back
This is where we used to live
I want them back

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  • 29 Comments
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beatls8
06-04-2002

Rated 0 
There is a rumor going arounf that this song has to do with domestic violence...I haven't made up my mind yet...

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CobyChick
06-05-2002

Rated 0 
I jst got the newest Barenaked Ladies CD, Disc One 1991-2001: All Their Greatest Hits. In the booklet, it gives commentaries on each of the songs on the CD, spoken by Steven Page. His last comment on this song is "And by the way, to answer one of the most common questions I get, the protagonist is still with the same woman - it's the new tenants of his old place that he's intruded upon." Therefore, I do not believe the rumor to be true.

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zaphodbeeblebrox42
06-19-2002

Rated 0 
right on, CobyChick. i was definitely fooled.

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catherineks
07-03-2002

Rated 0 
this is one of barenaked ladies' most touching songs. everything about it is just terrific. the music itself is haunting, as are the words.

it's about not being able to move on from what once was yours, even if you've now got something supposedly better. it's about the narrator realizing that life has moved on without him ... which is never really fun to realize. I'm at home for the summer after my first year of college, and this is a lot of what I'm feeling.

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Lioness_Whispers
07-20-2002

Rated +1 
When I hear the song I think about the first guy I ever lived with, and the studio apt we had at first. It was a cramped horrible gas smelling firetrap that was too small with too many nosey neighbors. I think about how much in love we were in that horrid little apt, and i think of the much better place we got together later on, but still the best memories are from the early days. That's what this song means to me, just recalling the days gone by.

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des325
09-02-2002

Rated 0 
This song makes me think of the apartments I lived in when I was in college. Yesterday I took a trip to campus to visit some old friends, and I drove by two of the places I had lived in. I felt compelled to put this song in my CD player. Just makes me think of all the memories we made in those apartments and all the fun we had. Now it's over and I am in the real world. For those of you still in college--ENJOY YOUR TIME THERE!! It is the best years of our lives.

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demosthenes
09-14-2002

Rated 0 
I love this song. Very likely the first, last, and only use of the phrase 'dish rack' in a pop song.


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demosthenes
09-14-2002

Rated 0 
I love this song. Very likely the first, last, and only use of the phrase 'dish rack' in a pop song.


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Emoweezerlover
03-22-2003

Rated 0 
this song means so much to me i don't know where to begin. when i first moved to my city i lived, i can only remeber love and closeness with my family. it was small and there were six of us. somehow we managed. i remember playing with the kids my age, always having fun with my mom, and playing games with my sisters to see who could spot my dad coming home from work first. Now my family has moved and my sisters live in different parts of the country. I miss the love and caring i once felt as a child in that old apartment. whenever i hear this song i want to cry 'cause i long for those feelings so much. this song means more to me than i think any one will ever know. espicailly that part:

"She loves me and her body keeps me warm
I'm happy"

this applies to my girlfriend. she is so great. she is just about my only source of happiness. i think every one deserves to be happy, so i hope that everyone can find someone like her, though i doubt that there is anyone else like her.

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cache65
04-16-2004

Rated +1 
When I first heard this song it was haunting. I have been divorced for two years, and I can actually picture walking into our old house and asking my ex wife "Why did you paint the walls".....It was a very sad song until I finally read the entire lyrics. I have since met a wonderful girl, and the last line sums up the closure of my divorce...."She loves me and her body keeps me warm...and I'm happy here"

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epp88
05-04-2004

Rated 0 
the song is not about absuse, liek most people say. the song is about a guy who moves out of his girlfriend's house. year's later he breaks in and is saddened by all the subtle changes, mostly beacuse he is still in love with her. the song is about nostalgia

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wrion
06-03-2004

Rated 0 
According to BNL (and Cobychick) the song is about a guy AND his girlfriend (wife?) who move out of their apartment. They're still together. He breaks into his old apartment later and the nostalgia kicks in.

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sephyfan99976
01-14-2005

Rated 0 
tableaux? Danforth? what exactly do those mean? I'm not that smart as you can probably tell, me and my friend were arguing about it.

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amazon_0505
01-15-2005

Rated 0 
I agree that this song is about a guy who still lives with his girlfriend but goes back to the place they used to live and starts to remember things. It is a somewhat sad song because they no longer live there but they are still together and he is just remembering the "good old days".

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JackFrostZZZ
01-25-2005

Rated +1 
I think you're missing the saddest part. I always thought he had broken up with the girl he lived there with. Instead, he still lives with her, but he doesn't love her any more. I think it's so tragic when he sings:

"She loves me, and her body keeps me warm."

He knows she still loves him as much as she used to--as much as he used to loved her--but now she's nothing more than a warm body in bed to him. That emotion just gradually died in him, and as much as he tries to act like nothing's wrong, he finds himself actually breaking into an apartment and obsessing over tiny things trying to regain some feeling. It's about the death of emotion.

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arrowt
02-07-2005

Rated 0 
sephyfan99976 -

"the Danforth" is a neighborhood and street (and very minor river) in Toronto, Canada. Supposedly it's an upscale area, or at least more upscale than "the old apartment."

Here is the dictionary entry for tableaux; I'm not sure which meaning he's using in this song.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tableaux

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ghoststories
04-05-2005

Rated 0 
Such a sweet song, but still strangely funny at the same time.

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Isabella_de_Reims
04-17-2005

Rated 0 
I agree with JackFrost--I definitely got the feeling from that line that there was something wrong in their relationship. He never says he loves her in return--and is "Her body keeps me warm" something a person normally says about their lover? It seems a little strange, to say the least, that that's the best thing he has to say for her. It sort of comes off as him trying to convince himself that he's happy, rather than a true expression of the way his life really is.

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MunkyMan
05-21-2005

Rated 0 
There is something really amazing about this song for me. Which is strange, because I'm 15, and I've always lived in the same house, it's not like I have any real life experience to look back on. Still an awesome song though!

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CrystalMax
07-06-2005

Rated 0 
Hmmmm.... I think this song is awesome! I just recently "happened upon" BNL and cannot get enuf. As for the song...This guy USED to live with his girl, but no longer does. After all, he turned up HER tv, not THEIR tv. Why did he have to break it, he just went there to talk....
If I were not already married, I would ask Mr. Page to be my man! :-) Yummy.

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Smokler
08-31-2005

Rated 0 
About an old apartment as metaphor for an old relationship.

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Trivial Suicide
12-10-2005

Rated 0 
I think of this song somewhat along the same lines as Jackfrost and Isabella.. He's groping for the way the relationship USED to be.. when they were struggling to get by.. when they depended on each other.. when it was REAL emotion.. and now they just live complacent lives in some upscale neighborhood.. He misses when things meant something to him.. he goes back to the last place he knew when he felt like what he was doing was worth something.. ie.. the fading memories.. that he wants back. not necessarily the "crookedness" or even the apartment itself, but the in touch emotion he was feeling then. Yes, he loves his girlfriend and she loves him.. but he's fooling himself when he says he's happy.. because he feels like he should be now that they have everything they want.. but he was really happy back then..

just the way I've always looked at the song.. and the way I know I feel about things in my past.. like I should be happier now that things are better, but I miss old connections even if things are better now..

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LongtimeSunshine
03-31-2006

Rated 0 
For the meaning of 'tableaux'...I'm positive he's using the first definition. Because tableau means a painting in french, and that would make sense.

Although he's condradicting the 'vivid description' with the 'dull'.

It's an amazing song.

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LongtimeSunshine
04-04-2006

Rated 0 
EDIT

This song is a masterpiece.

really.

If I had to marry a song, I'd pick this one. o.O

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j1.scott
05-12-2006

Rated 0 
I have to disagree that he is "still with his girlfriend but he doesn't love her anymore." To me the song is about a couple who used to live together in a small downmarket noisy flat, like many young couples do. They were very much in love but because of the circumstances they would fight and argue and eventually drifted apart and split up. He moved away but she continued living there. Maybe because he was missssing her or whatever he decides to go see her, but because she doesn't want to see him he has to break in ("why did i have to break in i only came here to talk"). the song is then written from the point of view of him in the aprtment talking to her. He asks here why she had to change things about the apartment, he wonders why she has kept some of his menial things and then proably out of spite asks for them back. He comments on the noisy neighboutr downstairs, and how he punched a hole in the wall, when the were arguing. He then concludes by saying that they don't live their anymore and that "we" bought a house on the Damforth. By this "we" i don't think he means the girl he lived in the old apartment with, this is another girl and he is telling his ex that this new girl loves him and how her body keeps him warm, maybe agin to spite his ex. He says that he's happy where he lives now, however, he still holds fondly the memories of the old apartment and even says that he wants them back, maybe hinting that he never really got over his ex and is still in love with her.

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