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Throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding, tear the glue
All of the grief we never ever knew
We had it all along
Now its smoke
The things we've written in it
Never really happened
All of the people come and gone
Never really lived
All of the people have come have gone
No one to forgive smoke
We will never write a new one
There will not be a new one
Another one, another one
Here's an evening dark with shame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time I took the blame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time we didn't speak
It seemed for years and years
Here's a secret
No one will ever know the
Reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Where do all the secrets live
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Stop and smell the smoke
You keep on saying the past is not dead
Come on and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not even past
You keep saying
We are, smoke
Throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding, tear the glue
All of the grief we never ever knew
We had it all along
Now its smoke
The things we've written in it
Never really happened
All of the people come and gone
Never really lived
All of the people have come have gone
No one to forgive smoke
We will never write a new one
There will not be a new one
Another one, another one
Here's an evening dark with shame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time I took the blame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time we didn't speak
It seemed for years and years
Here's a secret
No one will ever know the
Reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Where do all the secrets live
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Stop and smell the smoke
You keep on saying the past is not dead
Come on and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not even past
You keep saying
We are, smoke
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You know how when you are in a long term relationships there are all these moments that you share that are just between you two and no one else? They seem so important and fundamental to shaping your personality and identity. But after you break up with that person, you have no one to talk about those memories with. No one else can really understand how those moments felt at the time, or what they meant, except the two of you. In fact no one else would ever really care. And now, without that person in your life, there's nothing to those moments but your own memories. Without the ability to ever again talk about those moments with someone who truly understands their personal meaning they loose some of their substance: as if they "never really happened", like they are just "smoke".
A "book" is a common metaphor for life, and in the song, Folds is talking with a lover, who are towards the end of the "book", looking back on everything.
Smoke, is a metaphor for the past. It is light and whispy, it is the by-product of a greater thing (fire, or the present) and slowly it disperses and dissapears.
The song is extremely tragic, with the first verse about the couple being so frustrated with the lives, or books, which they have lived that they are just going to tear it up and throw it away.
The second verse is about how what the past is - it is just smoke. The things they have written (done) don't really matter, and the people that were in it have gone, they don't exist to the couple, so it is impossible for the couple to forgive them, for whatever they may have done.
The little bit about not writing a new one is obvious. You only get one life. You only get the chance to write one book. You can't do it over, and the couple are coming to terms with that agonising realisation.
The next verse talks about specific bad things that have happened, a night he took the blame for something, a night which was filled with shame (possibly that night). They throw them on the fire to destroy the thought of them. The lines about not speaking for years and years pretty much represents the years that they look back on and can't doing anything or getting anywhere - years wasted. Then once all those memories are thrown away they want to believe they will not cry, but they know they still will, but theoretically nobody, not even them should know the reason as to why they are crying (of course they still will because those memories will still be there)
The last verse is about how everybody's miseries (secrets) are always there, floating in the air, as smoke. Then the whole smelling the smoke thing is about how although the smoke is there, it is not the past, just the reminiscent shards of the past, and the past is dead. It is gone, the fire has been put out, and if you stop to smell the smoke, you will realise that too. And so there is nothing you can do. The book has been written and the past is just smoke which you can not rewrite. You have to die with the regrets of what you did and did not do. Quite tragic really, and then it goes on to the couple realising that they soon will die and float into the air as smoke, and eventually dissapear.
I swear, I am going to listen to this on my death bed in a couple of decades and I am just going to burst out in tears as I think about how much I have wasted my life. It's a beautiful song, but tragic. Luckily I am young right now or just writing about it would make me a wreck.
the smoke tends to get stuck in your clothes, though.
Edited by delial on November 29 2007, at 05:09AM