You want to be set apart?
Burn all of your art, repair the wasteful part
I'm a vampire in a forest fire
Hey, we all got to keep warm
Driving towards the storm

Your father was a pervert
Face down in the dirt
He taught you how to hurt
My father was a miner who lived in the suburbs
Let's live in the suburbs
If I let where I'm from burn, I can never return!

My brother reads you and me his new poetry
How embarassing
Your sister pours the gasoline
I'll fix your meals
While your burns heal!

Find a house, you don't have to rebuild
Stone by stone, brick by brick, nail by nail
My father never meant to leave me this
Let this love last
I drive too fast
Said I'd return if I'd ever cared
But there's no interstate I find to take me there



Lyrics submitted by a scar in the sky


Vampire/Forest Fire song meanings
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24 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment:I think its about people attempting to completely abandon and ignore their past (for various reasons like an abusive father or a father who never has time for you because he is always working) in hopes of having a better future. Yet they soon relize that it was their past that made them into who they are today and that you will never truely be able to get rid of it.

    Lamp's thoughts on the song's meaning is probably the best way to put it.
    Flag asylumspadezon January 03, 2012   Link
  • 0
    My Opinion:Just a thought probably completely wrong, it made me think about a painful child hood. Abuse - "Your father was a pervert
    Face down in the dirt
    He taught you how to hurt"
    And trying to move on and let the "Burns Heal".
    Flag SomeLoveron March 28, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I'm sort of suprised this hasn't come up yet since everyone and his best friend seems to be way into vampires lately but in order to kill a vampire you have to destroy the body. Usually vampire myths include staking, decapitation or burning to get rid of a vampire. So being a vampire in a forestfire would be a very very bad thing. Which complicates the song. It seems that to these people burning everything that makes them them (their art, their homes, their past) is a way to escape; but,since they are also vampires, it is implicit that in doing this they destroy themselves. Which I think is pretty accurate. YOu can't really destroy your past and hope to still exist as yourself. Family, past, pain are a bitch but it is all a part of who you are and being alive. "Life is great. without it you'd be dead."
    Flag lampon October 20, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I've loved Arcade Fire since I was in 7th grade. This song is perfection, especially the ending. Their music is perfection. I appreciate the maturity on this board and everyone's mutual feeling of awe/respect/love/amazement for this band and respect for each other. Yay for Arcade Fire fans!
    Flag gigemags13on October 08, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Also, can anyone explain the Vampire/Forest Fire metaphor?
    I don't know what it really means.
    Flag ellie--xon March 04, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:first off, i must say this is a brilliant piece of work, a golden needle in a haystack of songs. Its rarely even noticed amongst the more robust songs.The acoustic KCRW version that was formentioned is totally the best version findable. The lyrics are very confusing but have an emotional impact and obvious have alot to do with coming to terms with your past and not taking things so negatively. Obviously whatever bad or good experiences there are over time in your life, they create who you are in the present so either way, if you know who you are and like who you are, there really are no bad or good experiences at all.
    Flag punkboybryanon August 05, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Well, I'd like to bring up that calling someone a vampire is used in another song, Neighborhood #2 (Laika). In it's case, they say their older brother Alex was bit by a vampire. It seems agreed that it means he's very different from everybody else, and people feel creeped out by him and label him something dangerous that he's not. I think that can kinda go with this, only he's the one labeling himself. It seems he and whom this is sung to are both scarred from the past, and the forest fire is burning their past down around them.

    Honestly, I hadn't thought of her sister pouring the gasoline as her sister helping the flames grow before, I had just thought that the children were altogether running away (her sister pours the gasoline to run the car as they flee).

    I always felt like the song keeps going from the begining of the relationship a sort of symbolic end to it. I thought the lines at the end point out as they find a house together and live in it, and finally he begins driving, but he cant find an interstate to bring him back to her (and she thinks he doesn't care).

    What's being said here makes a little more sense overall, though, so I'm getting the idea that they're in the car driving together and cant find the interstate to their past, and eventually just have to give up and move on.

    On a side note, I heard the original EP version first and thought it was okay but not their best. The fadeout is good, but I'd heard better. Then I heard their acoustic session on KCRW, and they play this live acoustic on the radio. That version is far better even than the original, and aside from Ocean of Noise is probably my favourite song by them now.
    Flag Rodan2000on June 19, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:sorry capth..the song really doesn't seem to be about edie sedgwick. I think arcade fire are above writing a song about something that narrow.
    Flag no_quarter51on May 08, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:sorry capth..the song really doesn't seem to be about edie sedgwick. I think arcade fire are above writing a song about something that narrow.
    Flag no_quarter51on May 08, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"My father was a miner..." or is it "minor?" If "minor," then Win may be acknowledging the lesser degree to which he was hurt by his father. Possibly a statement regarding a less damaged past of his own, offering a stable, safe place for her to heal. BTW - what a perfect song. I cry buckets almost every time I hear it and think of my ex, who was abused by her father.
    Flag Freehumanon November 29, 2007   Link

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