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there's a place I'd like to go somewhere out west,
it's not specific, and the pictures show it best.
I know there's trees I know there's sand and I know there's grass,
I know it's somewhere in the past.
There's a girl out there who's lookin for it too,
she's not sure when she'll go or exactly what she'll do.
If i am doomed am I the first one or the last?
Am I just someone from the past?
No one has to hear, the sound of people laughing at their fears, and the ocean and sun are always there, to make you happy if you're feeling scared of the darkness.
If I ever saw a ghost it'd change the way I think.
I wouldn't gasp for air if ever I did sink.
I wouldn't struggle, I'd just let it all out fast,
and then start living in the past.
If we hold the hand that rapes the hand,
and everyone can feel the hand,
and nothing's gonna change,
it could be the time we're living in,
we'll never feel so safe again,
but love always remains
it's not specific, and the pictures show it best.
I know there's trees I know there's sand and I know there's grass,
I know it's somewhere in the past.
There's a girl out there who's lookin for it too,
she's not sure when she'll go or exactly what she'll do.
If i am doomed am I the first one or the last?
Am I just someone from the past?
No one has to hear, the sound of people laughing at their fears, and the ocean and sun are always there, to make you happy if you're feeling scared of the darkness.
If I ever saw a ghost it'd change the way I think.
I wouldn't gasp for air if ever I did sink.
I wouldn't struggle, I'd just let it all out fast,
and then start living in the past.
If we hold the hand that rapes the hand,
and everyone can feel the hand,
and nothing's gonna change,
it could be the time we're living in,
we'll never feel so safe again,
but love always remains
Lyrics submitted by caday07
Track duration: 05:39
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What a sweet, staggering, simple tricky little track! Naysayers of MGMT just can't evolve.
Initially, before my chaos began, leisurely listening to this song lead me to toy with the notion of the lost island of Atlantis.....and then my life veered into the drama that was bound to happen one day but came to pass just a few weeks ago. This has left me with a truer, albeit selfish, sense of this song.
Praise to MGMT for giving me this musical panacea to cling to as I cope with the absence of my beloved feline who's spirit left this planet on July 27th, at 12.55pm via lethal injection. I cherished and doted upon and marveled at the connection i had with this beautiful silky-seal grey, golden-eyed once feral cat named ASHA , since July 22nd, 1997. We were 'lover and beloved' for 14 years and 5 days. To say that Asha was, as cats are said to be, my "familiar" or 'channel' is to vastly under rate our uncanny connection.
During his demise, I held the most surreal and self-sparing space with him starting on July 11th during the 'thyroid storm' and the two strokes that occurred over his last 17 days. You don't eat, you don't sleep, you forget to floss, your bills go nearly forgotten and you are ALL ABOUT YOUR LOVE.
Well, Asha's spirit was ready to leave and his guides were there, ready to take him 'home'. On my end, this meant recognizing this stage and ultimately lead to the angel injection that shot him to heaven.
You just don't realize what you're capable of witnessing or sacrificing until you truly love a being who is vulnerable and dependent upon you. I was dumbfounded by what I underwent as Asha valiantly lived out his last couple of weeks.
I did so much stupid shit in the 6 months before Asha succumbed that I'm still undergoing extreme self-berating for my behavior.
To cut to the crisis: his last stroke rendered him unable to recognize me at all--and his pupils were so dilated that he was 'blind'. Once at the vet, ready for the angel injection, you don't quite realize how fast it works--the shot stops the heart almost instantly, and you're still there, cooing and murmuring your devotion to your beloved. But they're gone.
But "the love always remains"
For a day or so, I could not bear to hear a note of music, knowing how lyrics unzip me. And i was beyond grief-stricken, i myself was utterly without MEANING, without Asha to turn to. i didn't want to have any lyrics 'meaning' anything to me, I wanted to disintegrate/drown/dwell in the stunned reality of Asha not being HERE.
Enter the grace of a song like "Love Always Remains".
When my heart yearned for music again, guess what song chose me? This one here. Because of the unconditional love that Asha had for me, his mammal mummy, he summoned me to be a better person than i would have been. He was a reason to not go too far off the rails, to always come home to feed and care for him, and in the later years of his life, to give him subcutaneous fluids and other meds so he would be hydrated and healthier. He had little seizures from 12 weeks til he died.....they manifested as crazy bouts of excessive self-grooming when he was a youngster..and only lead to deeper symptoms in his older years.
Folks, I still feel like I might go to pieces (pieces of what? ///pieces come together for some reason just as well) at any moment.
And I do declare that "time doesn't heal all wounds"...it lulls me into the business of life, and then i default to an Asha flash, and I'm bereft and bewildered by how it is that he isn't here anymore. Nor do I want time to assuage the memory of Asha, I only ask that Time always ennoble and honor Life with Asha.
Asha's Love Always Remains. it is in the ether, it is all around me here in my home, it is in my heart and soul and in countless pictures of him. I'm still gutted, emotionally eviscerated by the lack of his willful, feisty, intuitive nature and his inexhaustible desire to be near me. He was extraordinary, and we were corded in a way i've never felt with a human, even though i have been deeply in love.
I'm looking for Asha's ghost all the time. If I literally 'saw' Asha's ghost, not only would it change the way I think, but I would welcome leaving this life. I'd certainly let it all out fast.
Right now, I'm living in the past.
Other appreciations: I love the production on this song. The chaotic electro at the start and finish. The way it resolves. The perfect touch of auto-tune on the chorus. The way the chorus has the real 'instruction' of the song -- "if we hold the hand etc....." overlaid upon it.
And the way it chillingly builds up and then cuts and drops you into the shimmering, echoing persistence of the repetition of
'THE LOVE ALWAYS REMAINS..REMAINS...etc......
with those few little keyboard notes just perfectly underscoring the beauty of the sentiment, the truth, the wistfulness of relying upon the love of a lost one always remaining.
This song is both redemptive and yet desperate in what it describes. It is so hard to lose what we love.
All in all, a very healing and cathartic song for me these days.
And i just love this band. I say "pish" to those who can't handle their proclivity for clever or self-indulgent songs.
I take MGMT as a whole, and embrace them. They're in my town this weekend, SF, at the Outlands festival in Golden Gate Park playing on the same night as the Shins. Both bands are so personal for me, that I wont' venture into the fray. But its cool to know they're in town!
Wow. Just as I was reviewing my comments before posting, the mailman brought me Asha's ashes---did you know that they're actually called 'cremains"?
I'm going to attempt a bit of a 'closure' ceremony here in the sun with my survivor cat Biba, and see if we can invoke Asha and get him to help us move along with love in our our hearts.
Thanks to any readers for your kindness in letting me share this.
Bless up everyone...
Thank you so much for loving him. And I will remember you and him, and all of mine and all the others that have passed and that are still out there waiting to be loved every time I hear this song.
the second part i do believe deals with death, and losing anybody close to your heart. with dealing so much angst and towards the end of your life, you'd rather let go quickly and go back to your past when you were lively. but even when your loved ones are gone, and even though they are not there with you, cherished memories will help their memory live on, and maybe give solace in time of great grief. and make sure their unconditional love spreads to you, and you can spread it as well so love will always remain.
Title: Love Always Remains
Simply put, this song is about emotional vulnerability, and its effects, specifically that which is associated with love. And how no matter what is going on, what other feelings, whatever is coming between it, love is always there.
First Verse:
This is an extended metaphor that helps create mood and add some story to it.
"there's a place I'd like to go somewhere out west,
it's not specific, and the pictures show it best.
I know there's trees I know there's sand and I know there's grass,
I know it's somewhere in the past. "
This exemplifies a picture painted in out head, and sets up how we want the picture of love to be, as something beautiful and exotic, some past romance and lust. It is the writer exemplifying how we want love to look a certain way, and we create this image of it.
"There's a girl out there who's lookin for it too,
she's not sure when she'll go or exactly what she'll do.
If i am doomed am I the first one or the last?
Am I just someone from the past?"
This sets up the dichotomous relationship between love and lover. The classic story of love of two star crossed people. The desire and dream of some perfect person being there looking for the same perfect image of love. But in line 2 it begins to show the reality of the situation. That love in uncertain, there is no definitives. The last two lines get into the vulnerability of love itself. Is he doomed to feel so vulnerable and so uncertain to this feeling or what he expects of this feeling? Is he the only one that feels this way (Anyone who has ever truly been in love knows that everyone thinks this when they fall in love.) The very last line is the hopelessness of love. The knowing that there is nothing you can do about your feelings but that they are there. (This is part of the sadness of the vulnerability that is set up as a contrast later on.)
Chorus?:
"No one has to hear, the sound of people laughing at their fears, and the ocean and sun are always there, to make you happy if you're feeling scared of the darkness."
This part of the song gives me the chills whenever I hear it. It is beautiful, and a true expression of the safety of emotion. It is the contrast to the negative vulnerability that is present in the end of the first verse. It is saying that in love, when you are with the person you love, nothing can hurt you, you feel so safe and wonderful. That gets into the nobody can hear people laughing at your fears, and the happiness always being with you. It is the beautiful wondrous joyous side of the vulnerability, and that is the lack of vulnerability associated with love.
Second Verse?:
"If I ever saw a ghost it'd change the way I think.
I wouldn't gasp for air if ever I did sink.
I wouldn't struggle, I'd just let it all out fast,
and then start living in the past. "
This is also a metaphor, and it basically just shows that regardless of the negatives, the positives make the emotional vulnerability of love all worth it. The not gasping for air, the not struggling, is not fighting love, just letting love make its way into your heart. The ghost thing is weird, but basically it is just that if he saw something odd, unnatural, it would change the way he though about things. He would question, but right after that sets up the perpendicular relation to love. Regardless of his new thoughts, he still wouldn't fight it, because, going back to the songs title, love always remains. Not fighting love, but living in the past (the view of love from the first verse.)
Hook?:*I think the lyrics on this site are slightly varied but I will roll with them anyways.*
"If we hold the hand that rapes the hand,
and everyone can feel the hand,
and nothing's gonna change,
it could be the time we're living in,
we'll never feel so safe again,
but love always remains"
If we hold the hand that violates our emotional security, the hand of love that makes us vulnerable, and everyone (really this is just two people, the "love"rs because it carries the theme created in the "chorus" that nothing else matters but the love itself") feels this same feeling and this doesn't change than it is love, it is there, and it is fine regardless of what happen because the love will always be there. Whether the emotional vulnerability hurts you or makes you better, it is there. The 4th line is a continuation of the time motif (past), saying that it might just be something about the real situation or the picture of love, but (5th line) the vulnerability is there. The great feeling of being so vulnerable that is a blessing or a curse, but the love is there, and it is real.
Side notes: Listen to the song and think about this as it changes from the electric to the real music and it fits with the motifs. Before you bash give this a shot. Please don't hate on me or the song. This song means too much to me for somebody to ruin it for me like this. I first heard this song when I had just really discovered love for the first time. It tore me up for weeks, because it is exactly how I felt. The fact that I was introduced to the song by the person I loved made it even heavier to me. I love this song and have a great appreciation for what it says. I hope you do too.
Great song, one of my favorites.
and everyone can feel the hand,
and nothing's gonna change,
it could be the time we're living in,
we'll never feel so safe again,
but love always remains) JUST TOTALLY MAKE THE SONG!!!
I know it's somewhere in the past." he also states "There's a girl out there who's lookin for it too," he wants to be with her again but he questions if she wants him too "If i am doomed am I the first one or the last?
Am I just someone from the past?"
there's a place I'd like to go somewhere out west,
it's not specific, and the pictures show it best.
I know there's trees I know there's sand and I know there's grass,
I know it's somewhere in the past. ---Like he's remembering one of his past lives, and where he's been
If I ever saw a ghost it'd change the way I think. ----it's like we're all ghosts because we are all people from other lifetimes
I wouldn't gasp for air if ever I did sink.
I wouldn't struggle, I'd just let it all out fast, ----And he's not afraid of death and wouldn't fight it because he knows he will get another start, a new life
and then start living in the past.
and nothing's gonna change, -------Nothing changes, lifes and the world are all transitory, forever moving and flowing into itself
it could be the time we're living in,
we'll never feel so safe again,
but love always remains
The world is just one big cycle of energy and life, and one thing stays constant..love