You may tire of me as our December sun is setting 'cause I'm not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below
Who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for
Both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident

On the back of a motorbike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight, leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete in the city where we still reside
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea, like navy men,
'Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides like brothers on a hotel bed


Lyrics submitted by sethbrown

Brothers on a Hotel Bed [DVD] Lyrics as written by Christopher Walla Benjamin Gibbard

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Spirit Music Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

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Brothers on a Hotel Bed song meanings
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  • +1
    General Comment

    I think this song can be interpreted literally in two ways.

    1-This couple is growing old and while one of them is encountering a mid-life crisis of sorts and trying to retrieve his youth, the other is not going through the same, and a chasm is growing between them. This would explain the protagonist's dismay as he catches his reflection by accident, and how the wrinkles "masterfully disguise the youthful boy below". This would also explain his joy ride on the motorbike, as he is trying to get back to enjoying life. However, no matter how fast he rides this motorcycle, he cannot escape his life, his reality, the fact that he is now an old man ("But even at our swiftest speed/We couldn't break from the concrete/And the city where we still reside").

    2-The less obvious explanation, but my personal favorite. I think there is a possibility that the protagonist actually still is young, and that he actually got in a motorcycle accident that disfigured him, and his lover is having trouble loving him the way she used to, as he doesn't look like the man she loved. The line "catches his reflection on accident" could be a double meaning-that is, he accidentally caught his reflection, and he caught his accident-altered reflection. This theory would seem to support the words used in the second verse. He outstretches his arms (not hanging, quite a risky maneuver on the back of a speeding motorcycle); we couldn't break from the concrete (possibly subtly telling of a collision with the concrete).

    Either way, both literal interpretations point to a grander symbolic theme-the theme of change in life, and how we deal with that change. This relationship seems to be on crutches because of the changes one of its parts seems to be undergoing, whether physical or mental.

    ka_roskoon February 06, 2008   Link

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