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Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I'm clean, I'm clean
But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage
You did not think when you sent me to the brink, the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections
So tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I'm clean, I'm clean
But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage
You did not think when you sent me to the brink, the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections
So tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
Lyrics submitted by rozelemarijn, edited by Mellow_Harsher, tadejm
Track duration: 04:13
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"And can you kneel before the king and say I'm clean, I'm clean" - he rebelled against heaven and he's not sure whether he's doing the right thing. He caused a ton of chaos and destruction and he's so full of guilt, even though he had good intentions and never meant for this to happen.
"Tell me now, where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart" - Castiel repeatedly gets into huge trouble with the other angels because of his immense love for humanity, he's told there's something wrong with him, he needs to be fixed, obey heaven's orders, etc...and his love for Dean is particularly problematic, his ass is hauled off to angel boot camp several times because he's ruining millennia of plans to protect this one little man whom he literally loves more than heaven itself.
"You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections" - Castiel thinks (erroneously) that Dean only wants him around for his angelic powers - Dean wants Cas' attention because it's useful, but doesn't return his affections (see the scene where Cas beats Dean to a pulp screaming "I gave everything for you and this is what you give to me?!") He doesn't see that Dean really does care about him until they're stuck in Purgatory together.
"Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life" - Dean teaches Castiel how to be free, how to love, and Cas leaves behind everything he knows to follow Dean. He fights against heaven and kills his own brothers to stop the apocalypse, starts a civil war, teaches the angels about free will, puts his own life in serious danger, etc...all because of Dean.
It just fits so perfectly, right? I really hope another Supernatural fan sees this and I didn't just do an overly in-depth analysis this entire song for my own benefit...
Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body?
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly (his folly may be the fact that he's being unfaithful to his wife or that he's already married)
And can you kneel before the king (King could be God, or it could be a more figurative king of love)
And say I'm clean, I'm clean (is he clean if he's adulterous? Had he done right by his wife according to the one who judges true love?)
She feels guilty - like somehow him cheating on her is her fault - so she asks "Tell me now, where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart?". She says, "you desired my attention" but whenever she tried to initiate anything with him he denied her affections (that's pretty common when guys are cheating - they say they cheat because they don't ever get attention/love at home, yet when the wife initiates sex he says no and is reluctant, perhaps out of guilt or to somehow "punish" her).
At the end she is clinging to a last thread of hope that what she suspects isn't true and that he is still being faithful to her. She says, "lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life." She desperately wants the truth to be that he still loves her and didn't cheat and she's ready to continue loving him completely if he can tell her that he has been true to her.
And give her your heart?"
He's saying "Can you love her like I do"
"Can you lie next to her
And confess your love"
Are you man enough to tell her how much you care
"Can you kneel before the king
and say 'Im clean'"
Can you kneel before god and be truthfully tell that you have never done anything wrong.
This is about a man who loved this woman with his "Whole heart". Now she is with someone else and the man is trying to ask her new boyfriend if he could ever love her and much as he does. But yet he does not regret loving her so much.
They are Catholic (marriage is a sacrament - events leading up to marriage).
Oh and fuck Taylor Swift. Some poser who sings Irish Catholic lyrics. Don't put that shit on songmeanings.
The singer is in love with the person he is addressing, but she doesn't feel the same way. She's selfish for still keeping him around because she loves the attention that he gives her. Either that, or she is confused and does not know whether she is in love with him or just loves the idea of being in love with him. That is why he tells her to "lead [him] to the truth and [he] will follow you with [his] whole life," whether she is feels the same or not because he will always be there for her.
This is just my personal interpretation. I understand that this song can provoke so many thoughts and wonders, and so I know my version of events will be completely unique to your own, but it doesn't make this song any less meaningful to anybody. These beautiful lyrics are poetry, and poetry affects every single person in a million different ways.
"Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I'm clean, I'm clean"
... is from the view point of a man denied the expression of love emotionally and physically as to remain "clean".
The chorus refers to the person's struggle between their need for loving a person and their love for a god that denies it.
In this verse:
"A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage
You did not think when you sent me to the brink, the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections"
... the person is expressing the anger and frustration that struggle induces.
The last line goes further to express the equal need for both faith and love/sex.
My take on the song is influenced by the fact that Mumford and Sons clearly do make many references to religion and Christianity in particular, and they often sing about the subject of struggling with faith, it seems.
I also can see how this could be the struggle between faith and homosexuality. So, basically, between faith and the kind of love it forbids. In the scope of homosexuality, the first verse might be expressing the struggle a religious homosexual man feels and the idea that living that lie surely does not make him clean.
I'm not sure. But this is quite a wonderful song anyway, and allows for a range of personal takes on the lyrics.