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And when I see you, I really see you upside down
But my brain knows better, it picks you up and turns you around
Turns you around, turns you around
If you feel discouraged when there's a lack of color here
Please don't worry lover, it's really bursting at the seams
From absorbing everything the spectrum's A to Z.
This is fact not fiction for the first time in years
All the girls in every girlie magazine can't make me feel any less alone,
I'm reaching for the phone to call at 7:03 and on your machine,
I slur a plea for you to come home.
But I know it's too late, and I should have given you a reason to stay
Given you a reason to stay; given you a reason to stay;
Given you a reason to stay
This is fact not fiction for the first time in years
But my brain knows better, it picks you up and turns you around
Turns you around, turns you around
If you feel discouraged when there's a lack of color here
Please don't worry lover, it's really bursting at the seams
From absorbing everything the spectrum's A to Z.
This is fact not fiction for the first time in years
All the girls in every girlie magazine can't make me feel any less alone,
I'm reaching for the phone to call at 7:03 and on your machine,
I slur a plea for you to come home.
But I know it's too late, and I should have given you a reason to stay
Given you a reason to stay; given you a reason to stay;
Given you a reason to stay
This is fact not fiction for the first time in years
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He's using these two commonly propagated little known facts as a metaphor, but I'm not quite certain what that metaphor is.
Just my guess =P
that's the best i can do
is what he should have wrote
and from that blessings create
Reading through these comments, most people think this song is about a loved on in some shape or form, but personally, I think this song, on some level, is about suicide, or overcoming it.
"And on your machine, I slur a plea
For you to come home
But I know it's too late
I should have given you a reason to stay"
I can't listen to this song in public, I cry to it every time I hear it.
Really love this song. It's extremely sad but it's so pretty.
But it was only him that felt this way. She didn't. She left him, and he's desperately trying to figure out why (why this keeps happening). After remembering what their love meant to him, he wants her (that kind of love) back. He calls her and leaves a message. But he knows it's too late. He knows that she didn't feel the same. To her their love was just a lack of color.
After years of repeating this pattern, of others not feeling the same, he realizes that only a colorful relationship will work. One in which the love is on the outside, is shallow, where rather than absorbing all the colors of the spectrum, they only reflect color, and have no value on the inside. Obviously, that silent sweet love isn't enough for anyone else, he thinks. Hence, "I should have given you a reason to stay."
"This is fact not fiction, for the first time in years." This is his resolution to the issue.
The fiction was his fantasy of true love.
The fact is that they leave you if you lack visible color.
He realizes that the kind of purely abstract love he wants is unrealistic.
He's no longer living in fantasy. Through the trauma, he's learnt a lesson.
Now that he's not pursuing a path that's doomed to always fail (and get him
hurt), he is now wiser. He's not going to turn anyone around from being
upside-down to fit what he wants love to be.
In future, he'll come closer than he ever could before to that kind of abstract love!
No more will there be a lack of color here.
a man that was in a relationship that ended.
He blames himself but has never admitted so.
The seeing upside I think is meant to be taken literally.
(he always uses such intelligent lyrics :] )
If the girl feels that their relationship was black and white (boring and over)
she's mistaken because he's bursting with love. (with every color a-z)
This is the first he's been honest with himself in years.
He's been in denial about their relationship.
Looking at other girls (even ones in magazines) just makes him miss her more.
He can't take it anymore and calls her
and leave a message begging her to take him back.
But it doesn't matter. It's over.
He feels he wasn't good enough for her or didn't try hard enough to keep her.
So for the first time he forgives her and admits to himself it was his fault.