Lyrics for An Attempt to Tip the Scales as interpreted by PLANES

An Attempt to Tip the Scales Lyrics
Did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand?
Like the sun is just going to drop if it’s night you demand
Well, in the dark we are just air so the house might dissolve
But once we are gone, who is gonna care if we were ever here at all?
Well, summer is going to come and it’s gonna cloud our eyes again
There is not need to focus when there is nothing that it worth
seeing
So we trade liquor for blood in an attempt to tip the scales
I think you lost what you loved in that mess of details
They seemed so important at the time but now you can’t even recall
Any of the names, faces, or lines, it is more the feeling of it all Well, winter is going to end and I’m going to clean these veins again
So close to dying that I finally can start living

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damienthornto
04-14-2002

Rated 0 
right now this is my favorite bright eyes song. amazing

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h0LLyh0Xx
04-17-2002

Rated 0 
me too
especially the conversation afterwards. hehe

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kittenfactor
04-27-2002

Rated 0 
yea its a fake interview. its funny as hell.. thats conors friend pretending to interview him.

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Wezzul
07-07-2002

Rated 0 
The part at the end where the instruments kick in..... that's my favorite part... makes me feel good inside...

WEZ

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emogreen
07-23-2002

Rated 0 
yea I love the instruments at the end too

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hopeless_completely
10-05-2002

Rated 0 
Yeh the instruments at the end are sooo amazing...the inteview just cracks me up though... :) its a crazy song....but so are all of the lyrics conor writes... ha!

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i.like.hubcaps16
03-04-2003

Rated 0 
yep, i love this song too. conor's voice is just awesome :) and the interview at the end...hahaha man, its fun to tell people its real and make them listen to it. but maybe i'm the only one who does that.

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.bright.eyed.girl.
03-05-2003

Rated +1 
mmm...gotta love everything about bright eyes...i adore conor oberst. this song is phenomenal. "Did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand? Like the sun is just going to drop if its
night you demand."...perfection. and ilikehubcaps..i tell people it real...but they dont care. my friends hate all the music i love. bah.

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whynotrowbott
03-10-2003

Rated 0 
" I think you lost what you
loved in that mess of details"
that is my most favorite part of the songgg.
i think if souls had a voice, that voice would be conors.
:]

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thisisjustadream
03-10-2003

Rated 0 
I love Bright Eyes. I really do. And yes I too love the interview afterwards, that sound is so annoying and finally when connor is like "can you make that sound stop" im like thank-you! haha. I love when they are talking about arienette. He's like "Oh sorry i didnt realize she was a real person," haha then connor says "shes not, but i made her up, shes just as real as you or I" haha i just love it all...i know it off by heart pretty much...

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FrankieHollywood
04-15-2003

Rated +1 
I love the part in the interview at the beginning where he defines the mirrors, fevers and scales. He is so intellegent and creative but still understandable its great.

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i have dreams2
04-24-2003

Rated 0 
i dont think any other band puts as much meaning into their songs as connor does

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thefuneralhadbegun
05-07-2003

Rated 0 
Well, in the dark we are just air so the house might dissolve. But once we are
gone, who is gonna care if we were ever here at all?

i think about that lyric all the time.



I think you lost what you
loved in that mess of details. They seemed so important at the time but now you can’t even recall
any of the names, faces, or lines.

that made me cry...it just hit me so hard.

So close to dying that I finally can start living.

we all wait too long to start living. its sad. its something i dont want to do.

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SWEETSUSPENDERS
06-10-2003

Rated 0 
I think the lyric, "Well, in the dark we are just air so the house might dissolve. But once we are
gone, who is gonna care if we were ever here at all?" has to do with conor's girlfriend or friend because a house can symbolically mean a union between two people. Also this songs seems to be like a farewell to his hometown. Maybe Conor wrote this when he was leaving his hometown.

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JustOneCherry
07-05-2003

Rated 0 
"I’m going to clean these veins again. So close to dying that I finally can start living."

This line sort of makes me think of a heroin addict who OD'd but lived and now they're going to quit and "start living" because it was sort of a wake up call. Anyone else get that idea?

Overall, I think this song is about how sometimes people focus too much on like the details, who?what?where?when?, etc. and they don't pay attention to the feeling that comes from an event or a relatioship or whatever.

This is a great song. How I love Conor Oberst.

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Slick Rick
04-09-2004

Rated 0 
"Did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand?"

My interpretation is that this song is about getting dumped. He's in disbelief, wondering how she can just expect all this feeling to just dissipate.

"Like the sun is just going to drop if it’s
night you demand. Well, in the dark we are just air so the house might dissolve"


The sun dropping would be symbolic for the relationship ending, thus ushering in the night (as she demands). The house would be symbolic of a union, as sweetsuspenders said. Its going to disappear in this metaphoric dark caused by the methaphoric night.

"I think you lost what you loved in that mess of details"

Its like he's dismissing the girl's reasons for breaking up as mere details and she's losing what she really loves--him. He doesn't agree with the girl's decision at all.

"But once we are gone, who is gonna care if we were ever here at all"
"So close to dying that I finally can start living"

He also starts to think about what life will be like without her. Though he's distraught about the whole ordeal now, in a way now he can start living. Awesome lyrics.

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RaspberryPerfume
04-22-2004

Rated 0 
"summer is going to come and it’s
gonna cloud our eyes again. Theres no need to focus when theres nothing thats worth
seeing."

i like that line a lot because i love the summer and it always does seem to cloud our eyes. it makes us very carefree and not relaxed.
well, it does to me anyway.

i also like:
"Well, winter is going to end and
I’m going to clean these veins again. So close to dying that I finally can start living."

winter is usually a hard time for me... so when it ends, and spring comes, i feel like im happy and "alive" again.

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InSearchOfMeaning
05-02-2004

Rated 0 
To me it doesn't really matter if it says "you", "we" or "I" in the song, I kind of regard it as only one person talking. This may well be wrong but with this assumption it turns out to be a song of both hope and doubt.

Some great problem must have occured some time ago in the singer's life and now he's trying to get back on his feet. He must have been hurt so badly that he even considered commiting suicide ("so close to dying"). Back then he was drinking a lot and now wants to stop it (thus the "we trade liquor for blood" line). But now "winter's gonna end" and "summer's gonna come" which symbolises the hope that the dark and cold days are over and everything should get better now.

So much for the hope, but the song starts with "did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand" and it's called "an attempt to tip the scales". I think that these two statements show the doubt whether he can really be happy again and make his problems disappear just by "waving goodbye" to them. As Conor Oberst says in the interview, the scale symbolises the attempt to solve problems through logic, which he thinks is often fruitless.

This is pretty much it: You decide that you can't go on like before, that you have to try being happy again, yet the question is if you can force happiness while deep in your heart you are still feeling bad. I don't know if that's the intended meaning of the song and I think that some interpretations of you guys also make sense, this is just what the song means to me.

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SuGarCuLtCrZd
05-10-2004

Rated 0 
I dont understand i feel really stupid. The interview at the end of the song isn't real right? He is just doing it to look weird?

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th3mar5v01ta
06-26-2004

Rated 0 
well if you read all of the other comments here you'd know that it IS real

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vellocet
07-05-2004

Rated 0 
Doesn't anyone else think that Conor's voice is a bit annoying? I mean, the lyrics and music are good, and his voice IS different from a lot of singers' today, but he's just not very good.

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ZeroOne
09-20-2004

Rated 0 
" They seemed so important at the time
but now you can’t even recall any of the names, faces, or lines.
It is more the feeling of it all."

I love that line, because I have a real problem with my memory, and I can hardly recall what anyone looks like (If I see them, I know who they are, its just thinking about them), and it always feels so bad to try and think about some of the people I've left behind, and not being able to remember what they looked like.

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PeteSzebin
10-17-2004

Rated 0 
I think when he says "They seemed so important at the time but now you can’t even recall any of the names, faces, or lines. It is more the feeling of it all."
It's sort of saying whoever he's singing about got so caught up in things that really don't matter all the people, how they looked, every little thing they said, and ignored the people that cared about them. And now they're trading liqour for blood(Drinking) in hopes that they can bring their relationship back together(tip the scales),

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Silence
11-01-2004

Rated 0 
am i the only person who notices the people talking under conor? i can't make most of it all but it pretty much sounds like they're making fun of the listener

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Silence
11-02-2004

Rated 0 
they're saying something about we're fuckign puppets or something?

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