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You can turn the city upside down if you want to but it won't keep you dry
You can turn the city upside down like an umbrella but it won't keep you dry...keep you dry
When you wrap yourself in a highway strip, don't expect anyone from it
All it is is cold cement
You can turn the city upside down like an umbrella, but who knows what you'll find?
[Repeat: x2]
Be careful
If you try
You can turn the city upside down if you want to but it won't keep you dry
(Faintly)Won't keep you dry..it won't...
You can turn the city upside down like an umbrella but it won't keep you dry...keep you dry
When you wrap yourself in a highway strip, don't expect anyone from it
All it is is cold cement
You can turn the city upside down like an umbrella, but who knows what you'll find?
[Repeat: x2]
Be careful
If you try
You can turn the city upside down if you want to but it won't keep you dry
(Faintly)Won't keep you dry..it won't...
Lyrics submitted by SpaceManSpiff
Track duration: 04:43
"Umbrella" as written by Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, THE BICYCLE MUSIC COMPANY
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Great song.
To me, this song talks about how no matter who you are or what you are you can create a massive influence on society. "You can turn the city upside-down, if you want to." At the end of the line it says that you have the ability to influence society if you want to, as in you can if you try hard enough, also leaving the possibility that ANYONE can do it.
The next part, "But it won't keep you dry," talks about how, say you do influence society, become famous, or even if you are just a wealthy person those things don't matter cause you still are vulnerable to depression, anger, and death. Just because you have material things, it doesn't mean you are invincible.
Moving onto "When you wrap yourself in a highway strip, don't expect any warmth from it. All it is is cold cement," which to me is telling the listener to not have your life surrounded by a job, technology, or basically anything materialistic cause those things can not love you back. But to surround yourself w/ people, people who have the ability to love you and provide you "warmth."
So a major theme I got from this song is that you can affect society with something simple, but don't dwell on the fact that you have achieved other's attention because you still need to feel emotion and love the people in your life.
I heard the song is about society, the characteristics of society, and the implications of changing society.
"When you wrap yourself in a highway strip, don't expect any warmth from it." -> this is referring to the industrial nature of society, and the fact that this aspect of society is meaningless if you place all your belief within it.
"You can turn the city upside down if you want to but it won't keep you dry." -> I think this is referring to a belief that although the industrial nature of society is not without fault, it is pointless to completely revolutionize society... I think this is true, for human nature will always be at fault. Therefore even if you were to turn the city upside down (entirely change it) it would not keep you dry (remove all the problems found within society).
...
But I think songs may have multiple meanings, going along with the trend of this being a song about loneliness, I can see several aspects.
"You can turn the city upside down, like an umbrella but it won't keep you dry." -> maybe a parallel to the old saying "turn that frown upside down"... even if you do, your true feelings will remain...
As far as the highway strip, maybe he drives (I know I do) when he feels lonely, gets out to try to just think and figure it out, but the driving alone late at night (maybe in the rain) just throws him deeper into the realization of the loneliness, like cold cement.
When the song talks about saying you will never know what you will find and be careful, I think it talks about how it is easy to get desperate and settle for less then what you deserve.
My two cents from across the lake, this.
I think that is is about being lonely and no matter how hard you look or search (even if you turn a whole city upside down) will you find someone. The umbrella image is used because if you turn an umbrella upside down it will no longer shed water but catch it. but in this case not even doing that will help you catch a person.
I think the keep you dry might refer to tears or crying.
I also think the wrap yourself in a highway strip to be talking about getting run over by a car. (I don't know lol) And how even ending your life isn't going to make you less lonely, less unhappy. Basically it wont give you that warm fuzzy feeling on the inside.
And that is my two pence. lol.