these lyrics aren't entirely correct, but i'm sure they will be fixed once metric's new c.d comes out. this is the titled song, and i really love it from what i've seen of concert/ youtube footage, especially the acoustic version of just emily on piano and james on guitar. i hope that the version on the album will be some semblance of that.

i think the lyrics are brilliant as well, possibly about falling in love with someone but it being an inconveinance and perhaps even getting in the way of a career, and maybe it's about "pulling those arrows out" and choosing that loneliness for the sake of the career and then having to watch other people being in love with each other. i think a fairly negative portrayal of love can be seen in this song, and in the acoustic version the chorus sounds very sad.

regardless, it's bound to be a good one and i can't wait to see what other people think when traffic picks up.

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Yeah sorry about the lyrics being wrong, although i don't think they're that off.
I will update them the day i get the lyric booklet.

ahhh you beat me to it. but i finish them first!

Watch out Cupid, stuck me with a sickness,
Pull your little arrows out and let me live my life.
You better watch out Cupid, stuck me with a sickness,
Pull your little arrows out and let me live my life,

The one I better lead
All the blondes of Fantasies

And we looked at them eleven ways
You said, 'look at me', I looked away
And you wrote the song I wanna play
I'll write you harmony in C

Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead
Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead
Play the lead
Play the lead

Watch out Cupid, money is a sick muse
Pull your little arrows out and let me live my life.
She said: I'm with stupid. Money is a sick muse
Pull your little arrows out and let me live my life

The one I better lead
All the blondes of Fantasies

And we looked at them eleven ways
You said, 'look at me', I looked away
And you wrote the song I wanna play
I'll write you harmony in C

Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead
Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead
Play the lead
Play the lead

I'll write you harmony in C

Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead
Everybody, everybody just wanna fall in love
Everybody, everybody just wanna play the lead
Play the lead
Play the lead

This is my favorite off the new album so far. It's brilliant.

Haha. First time I heard this I thought she was saying "play the wii" not "play the lead." I was amused...but confused. I'm glad that's clear now. :)

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I agree with Cupid... that falling in love whilst beautiful and sought after, can be a mind-fuck.

Love isn't all it's cracked up to be at times.

i thought it was "everybody just wanna play the wii" also lol

anyone know what 'and we looked at them eleven ways' means?

there's a book of short stories by richard yates called 'eleven kinds of loneliness' and i always tell myself the line 'we looked at them eleven ways' is a reference to it. highly unlikely that it is, but that's always what springs to mind when i hear it.

I always assumed this song was about how money-driven the music industry is and the pressures it can create for artists. The message is straightforward--money is a "sick muse" and shouldn't serve as an inspiration or motivator. The song could be entirely observational, but the lyric, "Cupid stuck me with a sickness / Pull your little arrows out and let me live my life," suggests that the speaker (possibly the band) was temporarily ruled by money and now wants to reclaim agency over life and artistic pursuits. Lines such as "I'll write you harmony in C" and "Everybody just wanna play the lead" could refer to pandering to the higher-ups and measuring success by industry standards.

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I totally agree with kmb187's assessment of this song. It's like if they want to get paid, the Music industry says, do it this way, but if they do, they suffer the "Sick Muse" of writing crap music.

What a great song from a beautiful band.

I'm sorry if this sounds somewhat trite, I do agree with what people have said on here, I just have an extended explanation.

In the first verse, the speaker addresses Cupid and says he 'stuck me with a sickness' and tells him to 'pull your little arrows out'. Cupid is (in Roman mythology) the god of love and beauty. Therefore she's implying that the 'sickness' is love, and that she wants that feeling removed. She then says she must live her life 'the one I gotta lead, all the blondes of fantasies'. As if she has no other choice but to be the blonde of fantasy, caste into a mold she cannot escape. Perhaps even a hint of bitterness or sadness of an inner conviction that she feels she cannot really ever live up to the 'fantasy', or perhaps that she doesn't want to live up to it.


Continuing the analogy as if she were still talking to Cupid, the pre-chorus says:

"And we looked at them eleven ways
You said, 'look at me', and looked away"

As though to say that she (and presumably the band) looked at a problem many ways and couldn't figure out the answer, all the while Cupid teased them with the answer they wanted and couldn't have. The following couplet makes the 'problem' simple: Cupid has the song(s) she (and the band) wants, and no matter how she tries to write something else, she will continue to write harmony to the song that Cupid plays. Which, in simpler terms, means that the song within her that she wanted to write was not the song she was supposed to write (probably for the record label) and no matter how she tried, she couldn't get away from herself. There's a note of frustration at trying to write something other than what's in her heart, and the fact is with the line 'I'll write you harmony in C', she is saying that she gave in to her impulse and wrote what she felt like. Thereby going against the label's wishes.

The chorus is like a battle of her mind. In one line she argues that everybody wants to fall in love. Love is the language of the world. It's something everyone relates to. That's why there will always be love songs.
On the other hand, and in the answering line, everybody wants to be the lead. Everyone likes to be on the top, at the fore-front. Every performer wants to be heard and popularity and distribution are important factors to that, which unfortunately comes back to money.


The next verse, the speaker again tries to oust Cupid from her life and her mind. She warns him that 'money is a sick muse', and although part of her knows that it's wrong (with the line "I'm with stupid") money continues to be an influence on her. Money and the lust for it often promote inorganic processes. So instead of allowing a song to be written, the song is forced for deadlines or to follow a trend. Yet money is still a driving force for so many artists. The thought clearly disgusts her, but she still attempts to push Cupid and his arrows out of head and heart.

The remainder of the song is reiteration of the inner struggle of the speaker between what she feels is right and what she feels she must do in order to be heard.

The fact that Metric broke away from their label and released 'Fantasies' on it's own attests to the decision that they made. No mistake that the album was named through this song. It seems that's what this album meant for them. I think they've done an amazing job with this album, and I think it's more popular than they expected it to be. This is my second favourite song from the album, the first being 'Collect Call'.

Cheers.

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To me, this song is about people falling in love.

'Sick Muse' could be similar to 'love sick', cupid stuck me with a sickness, etc.

As well, the song says everybody wants to fall in love, everybody play the lead, this could relate to the classic Romeo/Juliet style relationship.

'i'll write you harmony in C' is writing a love song/poem

'you said look at me and looked away' is your standard 'playing hard to get' move

Everybody, everybody just wanna play the Wii
Play the Wii
Play the Wii

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I think the point of this song was pretty straight forward - To me, it's about how everyone wants to fall in love, and how love is a "sick muse" these days, people saying it when they don't mean it, and people looking for love just to feel loved.

I think she feels all the difficulty in relationships, like she's been given a sickness by cupid

and then 'eleven ways' in reference to how many different ways people can be viewed, with a change of perspective

and then 'you said "look at me" then looked away' i always thought was about being lead on...

I think the song is comparing love to the music industry, honestly, how we steal from one another in love just how is done in the industry:

you wrote the song i wanna play vs. you are what i want but you're not mine...

everybody wants to fall in love, in love; everybody wants to play the lead, in the industry.

Riding the vein of money as a sick muse, one might look at eleven different denominations of money in Canada, where Metric is from: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies, toonies, fivers, tens, twenty, fifty, one hundred. That's eleven. But it might be a stretch.