when you have an orgasm, oxytocin runs throughout your body, causing your body to release endorphins - which, elevate the pain threshold. Studies suggest that your body does the same thing while you are dying - oxytocin, endorphins, so you don't feel as much pain.

With that being said, it is clear this song is suggesting a relationship in what it feels like to orgasm and to die. It makes perfect sense, you don't have to die to believe that! It's SCIENCE! :)

Beautifully written, Incredibly performed, and all-together lovely!!

the connection between sex and death used to be a theme frequently found in literature, but is uncommon now.
"in pain or ecstasy" describes the connection right there

oh and warmroad, the pagans believe that the moment the man reaches orgasm he sees the face of god.

and the crooning at the introduction always gives me chills

oh and buddhamuffin, that intro is in fact from the young liars EP

Personally, I think the song is about both about sex and death. Whether or not TV on the Radio intended that, that is what I think. *sex on the beach!?!?!??!? idk.* i kind of agree with sprucebranch, though i dont think the story is that thorough. Oh I got! The song could either way. It can be describing sex to death. Or death to sex. I think it is more comparing death to sex. I mean when you just get in the mood and then it happens. The tremendous pain at first but you just cant help it. (Pain and ectasy). Now about the first part.... um.......

(Cross the street from your, store front cemetery, hear me hailing from inside.....) I personally think it is comparing the cemetery to maybe a bedroom or other place for erm.... love making if u will...

Another theory for that line maybe one of the lovers is already dead or something and that death maybe compared to death and dying.

In re: to sex and death, "to die" meant to have a sexual orgasm in Elizabethan England (the time of Shakespeare). So, the idea of sex and death are not as mutually exclusive as they perhaps seem.

Because this song has so many similarities to the Rumi poem, I would say that it is about realization. The time when you have an epiphany and wake up to what life is really about. You don't take pleasure in material things and live life for what is it meant for... love. At that point it is like "staring in the sun." (Seeing the universe on a much larger scale). You can gain this perspective thru many different situations. "In pain or ecstacy" (when you face death/find love). I do notice a lot of sexual references in the song but to me that is just illustrating the point of cleansing your thought process (orgasm/clear mind).

i like to think of it as being apart of the audience in the crowd. standing in the sea of people staring at the sun (tvontheradio). water up to my neck, your at other peoples shoulders. and its about the extacy of watching them perform

I love this song so much! It really gives me goose-bumps every time I hear that opening.
Which band member wrote these lyrics?

Well I see this song could be used on many levels.
Like death, or sex (oral). Cause orgasms have been compared to "dying in a million short breaths" or something like that.

But it could be kinda morbid. Like "your mouth is open wide, you're trying hard to breathe. The water's at your neck, there's lightning in your teeth. Your body's over me"
Well she could be choking, and the "lightning" is mentioned in the last verse, "pour out like light." and then her body is over him. so she could've died. He murdered, choking her to death. It's no big deal, The lady appears to be a hooker ("storefront cemetery" - like working the corner).

But it seems it's really about the moment of death, but sexual references always make it more interesting. Cause are sex and death really that far apart??

When is this bit?

be what you will
and then thrown down your life
oh it's a damned fine game
and we can play all night

songs about gays

''youre mouth is open wide,
youre trying hard to breathe''

= kussmahl breathing. otherwise known as the last breaths, or dying breaths.

correction= i meant cheyne stokes breathing.

Staring at the sun is generally not a good idea - you go blind!

I think the song is about a person loosing their clear conscience and morally-driven revolt from the blinding realization of their own physical presence in the world.

I think the I/You is referring to the same person. The “I”, “me”, is the person's clear (morally clear!) conscience, it holds through pain and ecstasy, it's the lover of all life, the good and pure. The “you” is the physical body.

This clear conscience is yelling from inside the body of this person who lives in a store front cemetery, a world of dead people selling stuff. The body of the person is standing across the street from this world, so in a way the person is not a part of it. BUT it is still the person’s own storefront cemetery (“YOUR store front cemetery” says the conscience to the body!).

This person is yelling to try to assert this moral goodness and save their conscience with their voice – their mouth is open wide and the lover inside them is yelling for all that is good and pure and clean and clear - but it’s pointless, they cannot save it. All the revolt/tumult against the morally bad is done, it has collided with some sign, the person has realized something that put an end to the morally driven revolt.

The person is starting a the giant monster burning everything up, and their pure consciences is blinded by the realization of something. The realization is: "your body's over me", the body is over the conscience, the physical body is primary, the person is first and foremost a physical human being, they are standing in the sea and dying just like everyone else.

This person's dirt has more to it than facts, appearances, fame and money, but in spite of this, the person and their special/different/morally superior kind of dirt are still temporary. We (as listeners, as humans) are to not the trees, that is whatever wisdom we can find in life because we are temporary and so is all of our dirt! We are to throw our life down and play it out anyway we want, life's a game, and we will die. Beat the skins and let the loose lips (lips of 'whores') kiss us clean! We are to find the clean and pure in the dirt, in the physical!!!

This answer to the sun is a quiet one, it does not involve yelling and preaching our morals. We are part of this world, physically standing in the sea, staring at the bright light, dying, but still living with teeth that are capable of making lightening. So, this song is about a person's struggle to live in the physical world, realizing that their physical presence in the world takes precedence over all the moral ideals.
This is how it makes sense to me.