Nine Inch Nails – The Collector

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  My Interpretation:This song deals with the codependent aspects behind drug addiction. Often times addicts deal with alot of unresolved feelings from their past and they express difficulty letting go of heavy handed emotions such as guilt, sadness, anger, grief, etc. the list goes on. This all accumulates as a negative energy force "in the net that drags behind" them. After reaching sobriety, Reznor came to understand that he had difficulty "letting things go". He manifested these old demons into this song; the drug itself was not the only thing he was addicted to, he was-for the most part- addicted to the suffering the drug projected

  Flag smaurice1on November 25, 2012   Link

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• 0
  My Interpretation:This song deals with the codependent aspects behind drug addiction. Often times addicts deal with alot of unresolved feelings from their past and they express difficulty letting go of heavy handed emotions such as guilt, sadness, anger, grief, etc. the list goes on. This all accumulates as a negative energy force "in the net that drags behind" them. After reaching sobriety, Reznor came to understand that he had difficulty "letting things go". He manifested these old demons into this song; the drug itself was not the only thing he was addicted to, he was-for the most part- addicted to the suffering the drug projected

  Flag smaurice1on November 25, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:Everyone can relate to this song, we are all collectors at one point or another. He is collecting feelings, as he says, and they accumulate and start to drag him down. Blindly, he keeps on trudging through, trying to swallow all the feelings rather than embrace them and move past them. This is simply bottling up all your emotions and experiences and pretending they don't exist. Its only waiting to explode.

  Flag HammerFloydon July 05, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:"I'm trying to fit it all inside
  I'm trying to open my mouth wide
  I'm trying not to choke inside
  I am a good boy and
  Will swallow it all
  Swallow it all
  Swallow it all
  Swallow it all"
  
  Does anyone else read this as a little gay?

  Flagged cristealon January 21, 2012   Link

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  Song Meaning:Maxwell is spot on, as far as I can tell. I recently found this song when I was feeling like shit, I tend to keep things bottled up rather than talking to anybody about it and I've been doing this since I was born, since I don't gripe about anything a lot of people come to me with their problems.
  
  Since I cram all of this down it usually feels like somethings wadding up in my throat and I have to swallow it all and it's made me a very paranoid individual, I tend to think up silly but depressing things I don't want to hear.

  Flag Infuriatedon May 11, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Lol Shocka....
  
  Why do people not like this song though? Like, there are some bad songs on With Teeth, but I cant really this is one. The messy structure is pretty cool, and the lyrics are... decent... Sure it isn't TDS, but this sure as hell isn't bad.... Seems like it would be intense live...

  Flag FuckUserNameson May 11, 2010   Link

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    0

    i like this song. of course with teeth isn't tds but this is definitely a song i like on it.

    Flag TheMoonTellsMEaSecreton July 30, 2010  
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  General Comment:Good song.
  Gayest chorus evar.

  Flagged Jacktaron August 24, 2009   Link

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• +1
  General Comment:The version of the song with "I'm building something bigger than the whole fucking world
  I'm building something terrible" can be found at ninlive.com/…
  
  this was only sang in rehearsals and possibly live but was not recorded on the cd that way, obviously.

  Flag Nirvana23on February 09, 2009   Link

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• +1
  General Comment:This song is about Trent's bathrobe collection. He collects bathrobes and has hundreds of them.
  
  "There are so god damn many of them it gets hard to breath" refers to how he feels when he tries to wear all of them at the same time, which makes it difficult to breathe.
  
  Further proof is in the lyric "I'm building something bigger than the whole fucking world" because he's talking about how he wants to build the biggest bathrobe collection.

  Flag Shockaon October 12, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:These lyrics are terrible. Come on, Trent could not have written this song any less dirty.
  I actually love the sound of this song a lot, I don't know why it is so disliked.

  Flag cristealon August 09, 2008   Link

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