I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house
That don't bother me
I can take a few tears now and then and just let 'em out
I'm not afraid to cry every once in a while
Even though goin' on with you gone still upsets me
There are days every now and again I pretend I'm okay
But that's not what gets me

[Chorus]
What hurts the most was being so close
And havin' so much to say
And watchin' you walk away
And never knowin' what could've been
And not seein' that lovin' you
Is what I was trying to do

It's hard to deal with the pain of losin' you everywhere I go
But I'm doing it
It's hard to force that smile when I see our old friends and I'm alone
Still harder gettin' up, gettin' dressed, livin' with this regret
But I know if I could do it over
I would trade, give away all the words that I saved in my heart
That I left unspoken

What hurts the most was being so close
And havin' so much to say
And watchin' you walk away
And never knowin' what could've been
And not seein' that lovin' you
Is what I was trying to do, oh

[Chorus]

(Not seeing that lovin' you)
That's what I was trying to do, ooh



Lyrics submitted by swimsuperfastmcg

Track duration: 03:34

"What Hurts the Most" as written by Stephen Paul Robson, Jeffrey Steele

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, WINDSWEPT HOLDINGS LLC

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What Hurts The Most song meanings
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141 Comments

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  • 0
    My Interpretation:Ok so I know what the video means, but this is what I thought of before I saw it: Two brothers, the older one is in the Marines. One day, they get a letter that says he is MIA. The younger takes it very hard, and writes a very detailed good bye letter to him. Later, (after the bridge in the song) it is confirmed he was a POW and was killed in action. But the younger is relieved to know that the older one is in Heaven. Did I mention they are farm boys?
    ~This was a dream BTW
    Flag horse712on April 04, 2013   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I think the meaning of this song is a girl who was in love with this boy and when she told her father and showed him the man she was in love with he told him to leave because he was unhappy just like most fathers and when he is on the ride home he gets into a car accident. And in the begging of the video thats when the parents were telling her what happened she is so mad she is trying to find someone to blame so she blames her father because he is the one who made him leave
    Flagged Kawehiforeveron April 09, 2012   Link
  • +2
    My Interpretation:Ok I've seen the video and listened to the song a lot so heres my interp.....its about a guy and girl who are dating and close to graduating from high school and they *whistle* and shes *whistle* and he moves in...Her moms glad the boy is stickin up to bein a man by moving in and all that and really likes the boy but her dad is still havin trouble likin him.......a week later the dad argues with the boy and the boy leaves with all his stuff......while hes driving he loses control crashes and dies.....they find out and the mother tells her daughter and the dad doesn't know what to say. The girl goes through the drawers they shared to see if he left anything but doesn't find anything and shes so upset that he died and that her father had that fight with him which drove him off, that she throws slaps and hits her father in anger and sadness...Her dad,Aka guy in video, trys to calm her down by hugging her and possibly whispering sorry or i didn't hate him.........The moral is if your a guy(or you have a guy he)you shouldn't walk out on a girl if you still love her just because of something small and stupid
    Flag Itchiroeon March 05, 2012   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:The meaning of this song and the video is quite simple; it’s not about the boy killing him self or the girl being pregnant. It’s about a young couple who are in love and see each other together in their future but the father of the young girl doesn’t approve of the relationship. They are together all the time but never tell each other there true feelings for each other, when she asks “Do you ever think about the future, what do you see?” She is implying do you think about us having a future and do you see us together. When he responds “you, I see you”, he sees them having a future together but he never tells her straight out.
    At the beginning you see the girl crying and saying “it’s not true. “This is because she had just found out the love of her life has just died and she blames her father for his death as he made him leave and if the father didn’t enforce that action, he would still be with her.
    When you see her vomiting its not because she is pregnant, its because she is depressed, she lost her boyfriend and she has been crying so much its made her sick, physically ,mentally and emotionally. At the end when you see her running out the door, she is running to wear he was killed and says “I saw you” she is thinking back to that conversation that they had before he was killed and says she saw him in her future.

    You just have to look deeper into the lyrics and the video to understand it, you have to pull it apart and analyse it from both views. Its such a beautiful song and a beautiful clip!
    I play this over and over again, it never gets old!!
    Flag manda01on June 13, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:The meaning of this song and the video is quite simple; it’s not about the boy killing him self or the girl being pregnant. It’s about a young couple who are in love and see each other together in their future but the father of the young girl doesn’t approve of the relationship. They are together all the time but never tell each other there true feelings for each other, when she asks “Do you ever think about the future, what do you see?” She is implying do you think about us having a future and do you see us together. When he responds “you, I see you”, he sees them having a future together but he never tells her straight out.
    At the beginning you see the girl crying and saying “it’s not true. “This is because she had just found out the love of her life has just died and she blames her father for his death as he made him leave and if the father didn’t enforce that action, he would still be with her.
    When you see her vomiting its not because she is pregnant, its because she is depressed, she lost her boyfriend and she has been crying so much its made her sick, physically ,mentally and emotionally. At the end when you see her running out the door, she is running to wear he was killed and says “I saw you” she is thinking back to that conversation that they had before he was killed and says she saw him in her future.

    You just have to look deeper into the lyrics and the video to understand it, you have to pull it apart and analyse it from both views. Its such a beautiful song and a beautiful clip!
    Flag manda01on June 13, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:This song brings back so many memories for me...see my best friend who was a guy committed suicide our senior year and well i had this big crush on him and had all these feelings for him but never told him how i felt....he told me how he felt about me all the time...but i was so afraid of telling him my feeling...but a couple days after his death i heard this song and broke down...it was a really hard time for me considering he committed suicide 4 days before my 18th birthday...he was suppose to be at my house the night it happened but did show up...he ended up talking to his ex on the phone and well a little later killed himself...but anyways when i heard this song i thought of the last day i seen him it was in the lunch room at school and he was leaving to go to work...well he gave me a hug and told me hed call me later...but when i hear this song i think back to that day in the lunch room and wish i would have just told him everything...it really hurts that i didnt get to even tell him good bye...and i still love him to this day even though im getting married in 3 months...i just cant let him go...he was something special...was always there for me when i needed a shoulder to cry on...
    Flag AudiLovesDougieon June 10, 2011   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning:Jeffrey Steele wrote this song together with Steve Robson, Jeffrey wrote this song after losing his son Alex, sad song indeed, the Rascal Flatts video is devastating
    Flag Fiendenon March 18, 2011   Link
  • 0
    Memory:For me this songs is kinda what happend in my life a while back. I liked this girl for like 2 years and took her to prom both years of high school but never really had the courage to ask her out. Anyway, we always talked and texted and such and I just always had a feeling i'd never have a chance with her but then 3 weeks before we both left for college she tells me that she's has feelings for me but that it wouldn't work out cuz im going out of state. It hurt so bad and it still does cuz i never got that chance with her and i'm still having trouble moving on and i really sucks. I know i would have treated her like an angel cause thats what she is to me.
    Flag songsaboutyouon March 08, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:you have to go through a certain type of relationship and regret to understand what rascal flatts are talking about. but i don't wish that kind of hurt on anybody. not even my worst enemy. it can kill you. this song got to me immediately and made me break down and cry like the first 3 times i heard it
    Flag axyluvon November 12, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:No song has made me cry so much as I am right now. I'm sitting here listening to this song, and sobbing my eyes out, red face, tissues and all.
    I am so, so madly in love with my friend.
    But she doesn't feel the same way. Heck, she doesn't even know. Never, ever, ever will.
    The thing is... I fell in love so fast and so intensely that I don't even know what to do with myself anymore.
    This isn't the casual type of teenage love, I love her so much that sometimes it physically hurts. I've loved her for a year now. A whole freaking year, and I love her more and more each and every day. It never lessens, I never start to get over it.
    We are both girls, and I know a lot of people are totally against that or whatever. But I don't really care.
    She's straight. She'd never love me back. And even if she did, which would only be in my craziest of dreams, she would never love me the way I love her. Ever.
    She has this best friend, and she's totally obsessed with the best friend. They're inseperable.
    But this summer... they didn't talk as much, because the friend was grounded.
    Well, my friend and I became so much closer. We talked for hours everyday, had so many inside jokes, laughed our butts off, sent each other long, meaningful notes, texted all the time, we hung out twice, she told me things that she had never told anyone else, and visa versa. We got to know each other so very well. We have so much in common, we think the same, look similar, have been through similar situations, and more.
    We became so insanely close, that I considered her to be my best friend.
    But lately, we've drifted. The one and ONLY thing that she cares about is her real best friend.
    My friend and I made this plan together, one I actually thought would happen. We planned to go to the haunted house together. I was so excited. We talked about it for days. But now, she's planning to go with her real best friend.
    We're not the same as we used to be. We're not as close.
    But I still love her just as much. No, I love her even more. With every passing day, whether we talk or not.
    I feel betrayed, hurt, worthless. But I love her. So freaking much. More than I could ever scream.

    I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house
    That don't bother me
    I can take a few tears now and then and just let 'em out
    I'm not afraid to cry every once in a while
    Even though goin' on with you gone still upsets me
    There are days every now and again I pretend
    I'm okay but that's not what gets me

    This part basically summarizes how I'm lonely and I feel alone. She kept me grounded, she became my other half. But now she says her best friend is her other half, and that hurts. I feel abandoned. I drifted from every single one of my other friends when we became close. I'm alone now. So alone. I cry all the time recently, I'm crying right now, to be honest. I can take it. I have to put on a tough face and pretend like things are okay, but inside, I know that they're not. Not even a little. I'm dying on the inside, and sometimes it gets to the point where I just can't handle it at all.

    What hurts the most was bein' so close
    And havin' so much to say
    And watchin' you walk away
    And never knowin' what could've been
    And not seein' that lovin' you
    Is what I was tryin' to do

    We were so close, as the first line is saying. I have so much to say to her; to tell her how much I love her, how much she means to me, that I have romantic feelings for her, that I'd take a bullet for her, that she keeps me going, that she's the meaning of my life, that she's the only thing that keeps me going, that she cured my old depression but is unknowingly causing a new one. I have so much to say, but we're not even close enough anymore, not to the point where I can tell her any of it. She's walking away, leaving me, but not even intentionally. I'll never know what could have been if we would be continuing remaining how we were over the summer, I can never know what that would have lead to. We're not the same anymore. She doesn't see that all I'm trying to do is love her. I can't take it

    I'm holding on....
    Flag liveforthemomentnowx407on September 28, 2010   Link

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