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I'm losing ground
You know how this world can beat you down
I'm made of clay
I fear I'm the only one who thinks this way
I'm always falling down the same hill
Bamboo puncturing this skin
And nothing comes bleeding out of me just like a waterfall I'm
Drowning in
Two feet below the surface I can still make out your wavy face
And if I could just reach you maybe I could leave this place
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
You don't know just how I feel
I stay inside my bed
I have lived so many lives all in my head
Don't tell me that you care
There really isn't anything, is there?
You would know, wouldn't you?
You extend your hand to those who suffer
To those who know what it really feels like
To those who've had a taste
Like that means something
And oh so sick I am
And maybe I don't have a choice
And maybe that is all I have
And maybe this is a cry for help
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
You don't know just how I feel
I want to know everything
I want to be everywhere
I want to fuck everyone in the world
I want to do something that matters
You know how this world can beat you down
I'm made of clay
I fear I'm the only one who thinks this way
I'm always falling down the same hill
Bamboo puncturing this skin
And nothing comes bleeding out of me just like a waterfall I'm
Drowning in
Two feet below the surface I can still make out your wavy face
And if I could just reach you maybe I could leave this place
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
You don't know just how I feel
I stay inside my bed
I have lived so many lives all in my head
Don't tell me that you care
There really isn't anything, is there?
You would know, wouldn't you?
You extend your hand to those who suffer
To those who know what it really feels like
To those who've had a taste
Like that means something
And oh so sick I am
And maybe I don't have a choice
And maybe that is all I have
And maybe this is a cry for help
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
I do not want this
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
Don't you tell me how I feel
You don't know just how I feel
I want to know everything
I want to be everywhere
I want to fuck everyone in the world
I want to do something that matters
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"Maybe this is a cry for help".
It's very paradoxical. He wants to be helped, but he can't stand it when people try to help him. He is tired of people telling him how he feels, and he want them to do something about it, instead of coming around with all their supercilious attitudes. But when you're feeling down your view becomes so biased that you can't see, that there are other people out there, who actually understand you and know what they are talking about.
"2 feet below the surface I can still make out your wavy face,
And if I could just reach you maybe I could leave this place"
This makes me think, that maybe Reznor isn't completely lost. There is one person, who can save him. Whoever that is.
And the last, repeated part is about how he feels powerless and insignificant in this world.
The character feels that his true self has been oppressed, if not fully destroyed, and usurped by the will of others. The line "I am made of clay" reveals that he feels he lacks a definite sense self, which means others can mold him into what they want him to be. To make matters worse, his depressive state is isolating because he thinks he's the only one who feels the way he does.
The character is continually making the same mistakes over and over again and thus feels stuck in an endless series of failures and disappointments until it all seems hopeless. He feels empty and is drowning in his own self pity and misery. However, there is a glimpse of hope. He is reaching out to someone who he thinks could save him from his misery if that other person could understand him.
He doesn't want to be depressed anymore.
Then things get worse. The character begins staying in bed all day, fantasizing about all the different lives he could live if he weren't stuck in bed being depressed all day, which only makes it worse. Now resentment creeps in and the character is becoming angry because he is stating to believe that there really isn't anything real, that everything is just in people's minds and he doesn't want to hear false sentiments that others care about him. Seems like he's yelling at an ex-lover when she tells him that she still cares about him, or he's yelling a psychiatrist who is telling him the same thing. His yelling is probably not actual but him imagining himself yelling at whoever he is angry with, playing it all out in his imagination.
People start giving him the old "I know what you're going through, I know how you feel" bit and this really makes him angry because the thinks other people have no idea how bad he really feels.
Finally he wants to feel connected with other people that he will do anything to achieve that goal. He wants to experience all of life's options and experiences and want to feel at one with everyone via sex. He wants his life to have mattered to other people.
is a hint that he feels his personality is nothing more than what he has been taught to be.
there was a day, when i was trying to tell my problems to him(my psychiatrist), to make him understand how hard it was.
and them he began to say a lot of things and i was pissed off, literaly telling him "don't tell me how i feel, you don't know how i feel, you can't know how i feel!".
really desperate, in that room, trying to make him understand that i was going insane, that the pills weren't helping, that he needed to give me another med or something...
and he says that no, i was already taking what i should take, and that only myself could save myself.
the reason i'm telling all this is because i really feel that i can relate to this song, it explains pretty much everything i felt and thought that day, and that "you would know..." part fits perfectly to a psychiatrist and his patient.
The first few paragraphs describe the character sitting in a room expressesing himself to a psychiatrist..
When the psychiatrist begins to assess him, he becomes very angry
"and don't you tell me how I feel
don't you tell me how I feel
don't you tell me how I feel
you don't know just how I feel"
he then resumes, with the next verse, speaking to the psych.
"I stay inside my bed
I have lived so many lives all in my head
and don't tell me that you care
there really isn't anything now, is there?"
"you would know, wouldn't you?
you extend your hand to those who suffer
to those who know what it really feels like
to those who've had a taste
like that means something
and oh so sick I am
and maybe I don't have a choice
and maybe that is all I have
and maybe this is a cry for help"
Dead giveaway with the 'you extend your hand to those who suffer, (a crack at the way they try to 'help' people, and 'to those who really know what it feels like, to those who've had a taste".. another observation at how the psych works with people who know what it feels like and have had a taste of depression, insanity and the likes..
the rest of the song is just the character going back into his shell..
The "I'm always falling down the same hill" verse is one I've felt pretty frequently. Everything goes wrong, over and over again. Every time you try to fix things, or make yourself "a new person", or just try to get over your old problems, the same damn ones just come right back again, and it feels like it'll all never end.
The part about staying in bed and living lives in your head is I think pretty literal. I've stayed in bed for days before, just laying there, wishing things were different. Wishing my life was different. Wishing I was different. Imagining a new me and a new life, and almost playing out stories in my head of what I wish my life was like.
"You would know, wouldn't you?" This verse is describing how there's people in your life that try to help you out, and act like they know what you're going through. In your mind though, you just know that they've never felt what you're feeling right now. They've never felt such intense depression and anger "you extend a hand to those who suffer, to those who know what it really feels like" and they try to help people that have felt those feelings, while they've never felt them themselves. Usually, they're people that don't seem very bright, too. Either that, or they're just the kind of people that you can't ever imagine feeling depressed.
The "oh so sick I am" is realizing you have a problem, and admitting it. And you DO want help getting over it. You just want someone to help you make it all go away. But the people helping you, again, have never had "a taste of what it feels like".
The "I want" section I think makes perfect sense, and ends the song perfectly, too. You want to know things. You want to go places. You want to fuck everyone. You want to do something that MATTERS. You want to make an impact. You want to mean something. YOU want to MATTER.
This is quite possibly one of my favorite NIN songs. EVER.
Is it that obvious I'm an angsty teen? XD