I accidentally touched my head
And noticed that I had been bleeding
For how long I didn't know

What was this, I thought, that struck me?
What kind of weapons have they got?
The softest bullet ever shot?

I stood up and I said yeah!
I stood up and I said yeah!
I stood up and I said hey yeah, yeah, yeah!

From this moment on
Playing like a trumpet
Coming from a bus
Someone to love
From the confidence of knowing
Struggle to believe us
Struggle to believe it's so

I stood up and I said yeah!
I stood up and I said yeah!
I stood up and I said hey yeah, yeah, yeah!

And it seemed to cause a chain reaction
It had momentum, it was gaining traction
It was all the rage, it was all the fashion
The outreached hands had resigned themselves to
Holding on to something that they never had
And that's too bad
Cause in reality there was no reaction

I accidentally touched my head
And noticed that I had been bleeding
For how long I didn't know



Lyrics submitted by ReActor

Track duration: 05:55

"The Spark That Bled" as written by Michael Ivins, Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd

Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Lyrics powered by LyricFind


The Spark That Bled song meanings
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23 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment:This song is about dying....as is the whole album. The spark that bled is you/a human. The Soft Bulletin is being born/realizing that you will die. Standing up is just say...though I realize I am going to die I have made the decision to accept it and live before I do. And that decision causes a chain reaction among other people who have been thinking the same thing but did not have the inner force to say it out loud. And the people who are holding on to what they never had are holding on to a notion of the afterlife while squandering the actual life that they have been given.
    Flag ercleidaon April 26, 2013   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:"I accidentally touched my head..."

    Noticing that you're not as fulfilled as you could be. Wondering how long you've actually felt this way, and who/what exactly caused you to accept it as reality, instead of fighting for who you are or what you want.

    "From this moment on..."

    Deciding that from that point forward, you're going to live your life knowing that you should "stand up and say 'Yeah!'." Life is worth living, not necessarily because there is or isn't some kind of magical force holding it all together, but because you've experienced something that makes your life feel worth living, now, in the present moment. You're not living to get into heaven or avoid hell, you're not living to glorify some kind of invisible parent figure, you're not living to repent of your past sins or transgressions, you're living your life to the fullest because IT IS WORTH LIVING, RIGHT NOW.

    "And it seemed to cause a chain reaction..."

    Everyone seems to appreciate the act of "standing up and saying 'Yeah!'," but in reality, they're not reacting to him at all. They've "resigned themselves to holding onto something that they've never had," i.e. a REAL spiritual experience. Since they've never had a REAL spiritual experience, they have to hold on to something prescribed for them by their church/temple/mosque etc., which is CALLED a spiritual experience by the members of the church/temple/mosque, but is actually suppressing the real human spirit, which is by nature very celebratory and socially inclined.

    Instead of "standing up and saying 'Yeah!'" to the human spirit/experience/condition, they're holding on to something masquerading as real life, but in their ignorance, they think they've got the real thing. This is "too bad," because as long as they hold on to that simulacrum, they'll never hold the reality of human existence, only low-grade copies of the real thing, created by people who have never actually held (or even seen) the real thing.

    "I accidentally touched my head..." (second time)

    Realizing that you've probably ALWAYS known that most people don't ever have a real spiritual experience. This was most likely what caused you not feel as fulfilled as you could be to begin with. It's a vicious cycle. In the end, the answer is to stand up and say Yeah!, regardless of how many people are joining in with you, regardless of how many truly understand why you're standing up at all.

    Your life is worth living, right now. Let the dead bury their own.
    Flag chimchamon November 26, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:i think these interpretations take the song a little seriously (nothing wrong with that, though, as the thoughts here are pretty deep already).. what hits me in the head with this are the first three lines, delivered with a tempo that is also repeated at the end... anyway, the idea of looking up at your head and SUDDENLY realizing that you're bleeding can be painful, traumatic, can elicit a blood-curdling scream... but ever thought that there could be something absurd, something funny, about that? that's the vibe i get... i mean, we suffer and as victim think the world is ending when it's happening to us (in converse, we will--maybe--laugh if we are the witness)... but ever find yourself getting hurt and laughing about it??
    Flag laughing_manon July 29, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I get a much more simplistic meaning from this song.

    Many people have seen television evangelists/any evangelist say, "Are you sad/depressed? Do you feel there is something missing in your life? Don't know where you are going in life?" Basically exploiting people's emotions. I think this is the bullet that struck Wayne, and when he touches his head he realizes he has felt this way for awhile but doesn't know exactly how long.

    So he joins up with this group/religion and gets excited and euphoric about the whole thing, talking about heaven and hell (Coming from above us / And somewhere below) and the idea that you can know instead of guess that there is a heaven/after life.

    Then he goes on to an evangelical phase in his spiritual life where he tries to spread this experience, but somewhere along the line he realizes that all of this is just phony stuff and the group/religion is holding on to something that isn't real.

    The last stanza to me completely different from the first. Without the last three lines, to me it is saying that he realizes again that what originally got him into religion is true, that he is sad/depressed/scared of death/whatever, but this time he doesn't have religion to hold on to. The reality that these groups and the belief in god really don't heal these wounds but maybe only allow you to ignore them.
    Flag piperatthegates9on May 18, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Awareness and lack of total understanding albiet comprehension.
    Flag soggybottomboyon February 07, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Revelations become a fad.
    Flag DominElon March 29, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:That's one interesting theory you got there, cojabr.
    One question: what caused his pimple-popping expedition to create such an extraordinary reaction?

    ...cause when I pop MY pimples...
    Flag couitneyyon March 25, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:The song is about an epiphany a man has that results from a pimple having popped on his head. He accidentally touched his head and realized he'd been bleeding. He had a strange thought. They shot me with the softest bullet ever shot: the white shit on the inside of the pimple got shot out of the zit. This sparked him to come to an epiphany and he stood up and said "Hell yeah." And then he rebelled against something for the greater good.
    Flag cojabr1988on January 09, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Wayne Coyne: The title is taken from the phrase, "The spark that led to...." that people use when they're talking about coming up with an invention. I was trying to hint at something that sparks your imagination and leads to these other things - but instead of it leading in a technical sense to a next step, it leads to something of a more human nature: an emotional thing. It's the play on words - a spark can't bleed! - for the human spark, the way that ideas arrive and the process of them coming out of you. And that's not just in the sense of art, everybody does it. Whether you have a medium like I do, albums or interviews, or not, that process happens to everybody. It's not magic - it's a mysterious human thing that we all know is there although we can't ever speak of it in words. You have to go round it and hint at it and then people sort of know what you're talking about. It's like when you look at the sky - it seems brighter in your peripheral vision than if you look at it directly. And maybe a lot of perception is like that: being immersed in something else is sometimes the only way to understand some things. 'The Spark That Bled' is really hinting at all of these ideas, with the main theme that there are some things that you can only understand as a peripheral observer.
    Flag johnolanternon September 09, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:then he gets sad that people would rather buy what he put out and live vicariously through him rather than through themselves with his message.
    Flag johnolanternon August 15, 2007   Link

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