i saw this guy live at acl, he was so incredible

so so so wonderful

I believe this song is about my dilemma. Ray si talking about love he has for someone, but it is unrequited, love never asnwered. So he wonders about the absence of her presence in his arms, and its all too much, too emotional and overwhelming. It seems all too true that his arms are open for teh taking but she dances away and never towards him. That's what this song is about, and the meaning behind already beautiful music makes this so entivingly pretty...

That's very different from the way I've always heard it. I always got the impression that the first verse was from the point of view of one person comforting another. The second verse strikes me as being from the point of view of the person being comforted. The first verse has "you came to me," whereas the second one has "you quiet my worried mind" (loosely paraphrased, lol). Holding each other is the source of the comfort for both.

I've often wondered if this song was written with something like 9/11 in mind. Maybe that's just me...

That's very different from the way I've always heard it. I always got the impression that the first verse was from the point of view of one person comforting another. The second verse strikes me as being from the point of view of the person being comforted. The first verse has "you came to me," whereas the second one has "you quiet my worried mind" (loosely paraphrased, lol). Holding each other is the source of the comfort for both.

I've often wondered if this song was written with something like 9/11 in mind. Maybe that's just me...

I agree with insomniac328 -- it is about unrequited love, moreso that he's saying he would love this woman but for whatever reason (maybe too much going on in her life "sense of sadness" or a bad relationship) she doesn't see how good he could be. A kind of "nice guys finish last" love song.

Quite applicable to real life -- think of all the times you've watched friends chose the bad guy or girl over the loyal, dependable relationship.

i LOVE this song its an incredible love song. i think the people involved are probably in a complicated situation but the simplicity of his words make it seem as if its all about to come together and make sense.

I really love this song. It sounds like there is something that is coming between two people but there are a few things that I don't really get. LIke, "But who really profits from the dying?"and "This fist begets the spear." I get the feeling he is in love wih someone that is in a bad relationship and she comes to him when she is having problems. He wants her to see/hear what he is saying (maybe about getting out of the relationship).

I also think it may be about depression. It sounds like someone he cares for is going through a really rough time (catastrophes and all). He worries about her but he is comforted when she is with him or in his arms.
I especially think this is true with:
"Don't let your eyes refuse to see
Don't let your ears refuse to hear
Or you ain't never going to shake this sense of sadness"
He wants to help her. I think the way he says, " I could hold on forever" really shows how much he cares and gives the listener hope that things will get better.

Absolutely beautiful

I actually picked this song to be covered by one of our friends during our wedding ceremony. It's such a beautiful song...As my fiance and I understand it (or what it means to us)...there's a million bad things going on in the world, bad dreams, fears, catastrophe, weapons of war, symptoms of madness. Even though there's all these bad things going on in the world, I can comfort you and you can comfort me...love can conquer all. This is really driven home with me when he sings:

Don't let your eyes refuse to see
Don't let your ears refuse to hear
Or you ain't never going to shake this sense of sadness

Basically, see me, hear me. I love you and I'm here and as long as we hold on to eachother, life isn't so bad. "Love is a poor mans food." If man doesn't have love then he'll get so bogged down with all the bad in the world. Love is necessary for survival.

Anyways, that's our take on it. I can't wait to hear it sung at our wedding.

melanie07 that's awesome....I would totally play this song at my wedding..sometimes we just need to slow down and appreciate those who we love

To me this song is about a man going to war and all they want to do is hold each other. "That love is a poor man's food" and we all know that poor men serve in the military. "This fist begets the spear, Weapons of war, Symptoms of madness" this is something most people will never really construe and I have been in there. She was all I thought of and that is what this song means to me.

I think this song is talking about this guy finding love but the girl doesn't love him back until later and when she does he gets confused but soon he realizes it was meant to be. :)

I think this song is talking about this guy finding love but the girl doesn't love him back until later and when she does he gets confused but soon he realizes it was meant to be. :)

This song is clearly about unrequited love (all of Ray's songs from this album are either about love lost or unrequited, even official reviews say this: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/observer/story/0,,1355916,00.html).

This song is told from the viewpoint of a guy who is so deeply in love with a woman he can't have for whatever reasons (she seems to be in a bad or loveless relationship and is willing to stay for money or perhaps she isn’t in a relationship, but her heart is just not open to him because she doesn’t believe in love and only has casual sex). She is going through many problems in her life and he seeks to rescue her by holding her in his arms and just loving her. She doesn't love him in return, but she only comes to him and is stringing him along for comfort. When he says, "Seems like everywhere you turn catastrophe it reigns. But who really profits from the dying," he is letting you know that because this woman is so troubled, she drags people down into her pool of misery and no one benefits from this, especially her. She probably breaks a lot of hearts along the way.

The lines "When you kissed my lips with my mouth so full of questions, My worried mind that you quiet" are saying that he has confessed his love to her, wants more from her and perhaps asks if there's ever a chance for them to be together. He has been willing to put up with so much from her but now he wants answers. Just a kiss from her is enough to silence his demands and give him false comfort until she causes him further heartache and dashes his dreams by saying “Love is a poor man’s food.” This is the most telling line of the song. Poor people do not have many material things to dote on, so love is all they have to keep them going. This doesn’t apply to her.

She's making a universal statement that shows she is separating her ideals about life from his. She equates his idealistic views about love to pipe dreams, naiveté, or being a hopeless romantic. Unlike him, she mistakenly believes that she doesn't need to love or be loved for sustenance because she has enough material things to satisfy her in life – that money will buy her happiness. She's willing to put up with an unhappy situation in her life because she has riches (or what she equates to riches).

This is what leads up to the third verse. He says, “So now we see how it is” (he finally realizes that he doesn’t have a chance) and then says “This fist begets the spear, Weapons of war, Symptoms of madness,” which means that she has finally destroyed him by confirming his worst fears and it is a throwback to the first verse about how she is repeating her destructive cycle of causing catastrophe in her life and others' by refusing to love and be loved. Finally, he gives her one last painful warning: “Don't let your eyes refuse to see, Don't let your ears refuse to hear, Or you ain't never going to shake this sense of sadness.” He is telling her that it doesn’t matter how rich you are or how many things of value you have, if you do not have love in your life or if you are incapable of loving someone, you will still be miserable and this misery will follow you everywhere you go. She is blind and deaf to this one simple concept.

Throughout the song's chorus, he is trying to express to her how much he loves her and would hold her in his arms forever, if only she would let him. The one simple thing he wants from her is what she refuses to give him in return- love. If she'd open her eyes and just love him back, they would both be happy, the catastrophe she causes in her life and others’ would stop and all problems would cease because requited love cures all. The irony of it all is that while she sees him as naïve, she really is the one who is.

As brwneyedgrl said, this is definitely a "Nice guys finish last" song.

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He is comforting her from something that has happened to her, maybe someone broke her heart and he wants to be the one to hold her and protect her and make her happy and he is telling her she has to let go of whatever she is getting over or she can't be happy. He could hold her forever if that is what it would take to make her not be sad. This song is beautiful. I fully plan on using this song as my wedding song.

Truly a beautiful song. Probably my favorite of Mr. LaMontagne's.

This song is soo meaningful. Like honestly it makes me cry sometimes, lol x(. Ray LaMontagne has some pretty amazing songs...

"I could hold you in my arms
I could hold you forever
And I could hold you in my arms
I could hold you forever"

Doesn't every girl wish a guy could sing them a song like this....I know I do!

this is amazing.
def. love ray.