Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton – Crowd Surf off a Cliff

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  My Interpretation:"Can't express": This incites struggle with showing your love/affection. It's hard to prove your love when they're constantly doubting you. Or stopping you.
  "Fuck/kiss": Love is deeper than physical intimacy. This whole song isn't physical or sexual.
  "World away": Nothing is more important than being with this person.
  
  Crowd surf off a cliff
  Land out on the ice: Maybe throwing yourself/putting your all into the relationship and always being on the ice (it's fragile and easy to break.)
  Crowd surf off to sea
  float towards the beach: This creates a visual akin to drowning yourself. Floating off to sea and letting the water take you away... Figuratively, forcing yourself to drift away from a loved one and always drifting back. You can't avoid them.
  
  If you find me, hide me, I don't know where I've been: Feeling lost and wanting to be concealed, feeling like a wreck. Could have been out doing things unlike her during a period of separation, so she's saying this for when they come together again.
  
  Are we breathing? Are we wasting our breath?: Maybe this is reference to talk of their future together? But the question "are we breathing?" sounds like "Are we even alive?" Are we alive in this together or wasting our time?
  It won't be enough to be rich: Money wouldn't salvage the relationship. Money isn't even desirable here.
  All the babies tucked away in their beds
  We're out here screaming: Babies are so new and unaware at infancy, and adults are out there going hysterical over love and their life's experiences. She's contrasting as it's a sad thing.
  The life that you thought through is gone
  Can't want out, the ending outlasting the mood: There's no more dreams for their future because they gave up. The break-up overbears the good times (mood) they had. "Can't want out": she can't even wish for an escape from the thoughts because the relationship haunts her.

  Flag doctrblindon February 17, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:I think the song meaning is quite basic. It's just about feeling lost, lonely and trying to make sense of the world.
  "If you find me, hide me, I don't know where I've been" is obviously a warning that she's a lost cause, it's very sad but I think we can all relate to feeling like that. "Loneliness is the human condition" and all that.

  Flag fluvialon April 24, 2011   Link

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• +1
  General Comment:I think it's about the desolate nature of life in general, and how painful it is to be alone in a world so full of people. It doesn't matter what you have on the surface, when what you really long for is the touch, the love, the companionship of another.

  Flag Phillipvon January 13, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Yes it seems very simple, that the ideal life that she used to think she'd live-fall in love, move in together, marry, have kids-is fractured by the distance.
  
  I think she feels very disconnected to the possibility of having a family and a solid relationship by her chaotic lifestyle, but she can't quite leave her career yet.

  Flag Emariion June 17, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:I do believe this is about the fact that she didn't get to have a family, and she chose a different route. I think ultimately this song is about her lacking the courage to get away from the path she has so carefully paved already even if she had planned something totally different.
  
  When she says "Everywhere and every way I see you with me", she's obviously missing someone. And right after the statement, she says,
  
  "Crowd surf off a cliff
  Land out on the ice
  Crowd surf off to sea
  float towards the beach"
  
  When you land out on the ice, it can easily break. And when you float out to sea, you probably won't be coming back.
  I think that she's lost, and she's looking for a way out... of her stardom life. What gets me about this part of the song is the way she sings it... as if it's the best thing that could happen to her. Like a memory you would have with someone you love or a dream.
  
  She decides that she "Can't want out, the ending outlasting the mood" and she ends up "waking up lonely"
  
  When she says "If you find me, hide me, I don't know where I've been". I think this statement shows the child-like side of Emily Haines. It always makes me think she is thinking back like the way things used to be. Playful and fun.
  
  When she says "All the babies tucked away in their beds
  We're out here screaming
  The life that you thought through is gone" She imagined a life, a family, kids.
  
  With this song she justifies that it wouldn't be such a shame if she suddenly disappears by making every attempt to describe going away like a child-like fantasy or dream, but still she lacks the courage and every morning she wakes up lonely.
  
  

  Flag biteslifeon July 31, 2009   Link

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  My Interpretation:This whole song does have something to do with fame and its downsides. It has put a strain on her relationship and she'd give up even her career to rekindle it. She may also have a baby (or child) with her partner and tries to pretend everything is okay for the sake of their child..
  
  Crowd surf off a cliff
  Land out on the ice
  Crowd surf off to sea
  float towards the beach
  
  I think in this part she's trying to run away but she doesn't really get anywhere, like something keeps pulling her back in... like water dragging you back to shore. She's stuck with the dilemma of having to choose between her career and her family.
  

  Flag bleu_ice2002on June 18, 2009   Link

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• 0
  General Comment:I think it's about taking risks for a relationship, holding out for something that might not work, so an affair or long-distance, perhaps...

  Flag missmeon April 13, 2009   Link

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• 0
  General Comment:I think the idea that it could be about Emily's father, Paul Haines, is a good one. For one, the cover art for 'Knives Don't Have Your Back' is based on that for Paul Haines' opera 'Escalator Over The Hill' so it's obvious that despite the fact he died 3 years before Emily's album was realised, he had a profound effect on her musically.
  
  'Cursed with a love that you can't express
  It's not for a fuck, or a kiss' - Can we entirely express why we love our parents? I don't think the idea of a long-distance relationship works here, because yes being in love is higher than the physical side but these lyrics seem to suggest no physical side at all, therefore making it possible for the love to be familial.
  
  'Everywhere and every way I see you with me' - She still misses him.
  
  I think the musical references, while possibly pointing towards choosing between a relationship and a musical career, could also be a nod to her father as a musician. It was he, after all who would make cassettes of rare and eclectic music for Emily to listen to. She ties them in with hints of suicide with 'Land out on the ice' because his death makes her want to join him.
  
  'The life that you thought through is gone' - This just seems to be an obvious reference to death to me. Everything her father lived and worked for has gone with him and maybe there's some bitterness on Emily's part for this.
  

  Flag Prisoner.I.Wason March 18, 2009   Link

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• 0
  General Comment:This song is about how she's been in a relationship thats dying but she doesn't want to get out of it because then she'll have nobody. And she'd rather be stuck in a dead relationship then have nobody.
  
  "All the babies tucked away in their beds
  We're out here screaming
  The life that you thought through is gone"
  
  This bit shows how they've lived there life together and had children but everything the couple has always dreamt of hasn't happened and now it's too late to bring it back.
  
  now her husband or partner has moved away somewhere far away and she's alone even though she's still in a relatonship with him.
  she's still lonely.
  
  This song is about how you shouldn't stick to a relationship if your not happy just to keep you from being lonley because in the end you won't be happy.
  this song is heartbreaking.
  
  :)
  

  Flag watchon February 05, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:i wrote the first stanza as a note to someone when they broke my heart and left me for whatever reason they weren't telling me. They didn't understand it.
  
  "cursed with a love that you can't express/ not for a fuck or a kiss" You love someone because of love, not for the physicalness of it. That's irrelevant. You harbor those feelings for the person long after they have discarded you, and therefore you can't express them any more.
  
  "the life that you thought through is gone" You had it all planned out, everything is fine and then that person has taken it from you. Pretty straight forward.
  
  "the ending outlasting the mood" And the truth of the matter, that it is over, outlasts the grief that it caused you. maybe.
  
  "if you find me hide me i don't know where i've been" Something in this feels like you just threw yourself into something that maybe you shouldn't have. If it ended so suddenly, or you didn't have time to "get over it" befoe it was done, maybe you were just a fool. You don't wnat to think that, so you want to be hidden.
  
  A lot of the lines I feel are pretty straight forward. I dont know this song needs more comments. So fucking good.
  
  I never connected the chorus with the fans aka crowd. I think songs can be about more than one thing, Lord knows mine are. Not always connected, but she's a pro, so maybe she has it down better than me.
  
  
  

  Flag halfhorizonon December 27, 2008   Link

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