Amazing lyrics.

Easily, the best song on Dear Science, can't say enough good things about the song. The handclaps?! The bum, bum bum's?! The Lyrics?! That chorus hook?!?!? Come on, music simply does not get better than what they have accomplished here.

fucking epic. what an amazing way to kick off an amazing album.

put some of this in a bottle and save it for your grandkids!

great song, definetly my favorite on Dear Science.

this song is too good. it's so eerie. when i first listened to this cd i couldn't get past this song, i just kept listening to it over and over. great song, great cd.

Amazing. I thought this was a website to talk about what songs mean, hence the title of the site. Six posts prior to mine, not one with any talk of lyrical meaning.

That said, here's what I think. It seems to be regarding a relationship where things aren't great. Maybe some cheating was involved. One party is into it but something happened and that person is questioning what the other thinks about the other's commitment.

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Just like there is always five+ people who like to talk about how much they like the song, there always has to be at least one asshole who has to rain on everyone's parade in a totally unecessary, smartass way. Fortunately, the lyrics meister pandah462 was kind enough to fill the role of the asshole on this song. Thanks pandah! The much needed breath of halitosis and poorly executed douchebaggery has been established. He also filled the role of the person(s) who assume that every song in the existence of humanity is about a relationship between a singer and his girlfriend.

On to the song meaning. Tunde said in concert that this song was about anyone who lost someone who they could never see again. Now I realize that there are a lot of indications that this might be about a woman, I do not necessarily think it's about anyone who's alive. I don't know about you, pandah, but I don't think a lot of people have any questions about whether or not they still have a relationship with someone who is dead. Haha just kiddin' pandah. Thanks for being you, you crazy, crazy thang.

P.S. How did you learn to type? A panda on a computer? That's off the fucking chain. I bet you're all cute and cuddly, and endangered.










Fuckass.

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I may be way off here but has anyone considered that it might be about a suicide. Perhaps this Halfway Home is some sort of rehabilitation center that this girl is in.

"The lazy way they turned your head
Into a rest stop for the dead
And did it all in gold and blue and grey"

Maybe she was given anti-depressants or some other medication that took her personality. Think One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The only way to control the patients is to keep them sedated and to take away their personalities and motives.

"The efforts to allay your dread,
In spite of all you knew and said,
Were hard to see and harder still to say"

She was trying to get better for whatever reasons but the problems were too much for her.

"A comfort plush all laced in lead
Was sent to quell your sentiment
And keep your trembling sentinel hand at bay"

Here's where I see that it could be a suicide. The "comfort plush all laced in lead" may be a gun (hence the lead part) and it would be comforting to her to take her life as she sees this is the only way out ("to quell your sentiment").

"And when a sudden silhouette
Escaped the top-side of your bed
I knew you'd never ever be the same"

This sounds a little corny, but the silhouette could be her soul that escapes her body. He says I knew you'd never be the same because she's dead.

What do you guys think? I'm not sure what to make of the chorus, but the first couple versus really seem to point to a suicide.

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I hear this as being about someone who may have been suffering from some sort of mental illness or maybe depression. I don't know, something about the description of "the lazy way they turned your head / into a rest stop for the dead" that just sounds very "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" to me. Also the description of the silhouette escaping the bed, could be a care giver, the person's soul, or their sanity departing.
Perhaps it's about a troubled person who was obviously loved ("the damage you hold inside your blush" - such a beautiful line! or "it's over now / but not enough"), but felt too burdened by whatever ailed them to reap the benefits of that love, a person with a free and creative soul, who ultimately lost the fight with her inner demons.
Possibly a suicide, maybe "a comfort plush all laced in lead" refers to a bullet?

I read in an article (not sure what the source was) that Tunde said this was about two people who had died, and that's all he was prepared to say about it. Which, kind of made me wonder if it was maybe a pregnant woman, or a woman and a child who were lost.

Either way, and even if my interpretation is way off, it is one hell of a great song, and part of a brilliant album. And though it clearly speaks of loss, I think it's also uplifting the way it so beautifully depicts the love towards what clearly was, to the person speaking the words, a person of great inner beauty and light.

Part of the beauty of the song is the ambiguity but my sense is that at least part of the imagery is taken from a cemetery and, more specifically, a grave site. The "rest stop for the dead" is literal as well as, perhaps, representing the mind of the person who has died and who may have suffered from mental illness. There may have been treatment for the illness using various medications (perhaps pills in gold and blue and grey), but those colors also call up graveyard imagery: the grey of tombstones, the gold of lettering, and the blue of the sky.

The efforts to allay dread do, in fact, sound like medications used to treat someone whose "sentiments" disdained such treatments. Such treatments may have caused a leaden feeling in the person being treated, thus "comfort plush all laced in lead."

Perhaps the "sudden silhouette" is some act of self destruction but it also conjures the image of a gravestone again: a silhouette above a resting place. The narrator is suffering grief, thus "it's over now, and not enough." The wild spirit that now "surfs the sun and scales the moon" has been unleashed. Meanwhile, the narrator is "closer now" to the dead, feeling closer to death himself, perhaps. At the end, the stone is both the gravestone and, perhaps, the heart of the narrator, numbed by grief. And the halfway home is, in fact, the cemetery, which is halfway between the living and the dead. The narrator feels he is at least halfway inhabiting this place now.

Hmmm... while I understand and to a point agree with the references to this song being about either loss, or death, or about never being able to be with someone again, my twisted little mind keeps bringing me back to a single track. I just can't shake the feeling I get everytime I hear this song. Like a person in your life who you love and carefore, maybe a lover, spouse, or friend, has been diagnosed with a mental ilness of some sort, and both you and they feel that they aren't really crazy. However, they're still being carted off to the insane asylum none the less. I'm not a real fan of line by line analysis, but in this case I can't help myself.

The lazy way they turned your head (sort of like the person has been drugged, and now they setting her up on a gurney)
Into a rest stop for the dead (The mind of a drugged individual isn't exactly vivid, however the state is temporary, so its only like a rest stop)
And did it all in gold and blue and grey (I get the feel of a hospital, you know the lobbies are all bright colors and pretty, while operating and recovery rooms are still colorful, but more mellow like blue, and lastly the mental illnes ward is all shades of white and gray, virtually lifeless)

The efforts to allay your dread, (Now she's come to and is trying to calm herself down)
In spite of all you knew and said, (She fails, and starts to freak simply because she can't really comprehend her situation and make it a coherent thought.)
Were hard to see and harder still to say

A comfort plush all laced in lead (I'm really seeing a pill here. A lot of the old time snake oil potions, and cure all alls contained various amounts of lead, so I get the feeling that she's given a medicing she really doesn't need)
Was sent to quell your sentiment
And keep your trembling sentinel hand at bay (In reallity its just another drug to keep her calmed down and basically lowering all of her defenses.)

And when a sudden silhouette
Escaped the top-side of your bed(It's like the will slowly fades away over timee, and she's become just another slack jawed ward when before she was a beautiful person with thoughts and a distinct personality, and you just see it all leave her bit by bit.)
I knew you'd never ever be the same

Is it not me?
Am I not folded by your touch?
The words you spoke (almost like you're missing the time you spent with her, the conversations you had, and the intellect she demonstrated, and you mourn the fact that you may never have that again)
I know too much
It's over now
And not enough

Is it not me?
The damage you hold inside your blush? (Perhaps its like the realization that she did have a few problems and she might be better off without you complicating her life.)
The load you towed
You showed it up
It's over now
And I'm insane

Wild spirits winds from out your chest (Having had dreams spun by psychotropic drugs before, I can't help bu tfeel like these two stanzas are showing the dreams she's having as she lies drugged on her little white bed)
Collides with world and wilderness
It needs a gentle hand to call it home

Now surfs the sun and scales the moon
And winds the waistband of her womb
All eyes ablaze the day you break your mold (like the proctors who are watching her, waiting to see if she gets 'better' or if she regresses)

Is it not me?
Am I not culled into your clutch?
The words you spoke
I know too much
We're closer now
And said enough

Is it not me?
Am I not rolled into your crush?
The road you choose
Unloads control
See it take me so

Go on throw this stone
Into this halfway home. (As those two stanza's build up, followed by these two lines and the resulting crescendo in the song, It's like you've just had enough and you've choosen to take all risks and free her from the institution. When you think of it, mental institutions quite similar to halfway homes. You're 'supposed' to get 'better' whether that actually happens or not is a different story. If you don't 'heal', you stay there, and it becomes another halfway home atwixt life and death. You desire to free her from this. Throwing stones always brings up pictures of shattering glass in my mind."

This is honestly just my own crazed interpretation of the song, probably not what TV on the Radio intended to convey, merely the feelings and emotions the song illicits from me. Again I aplogize for the line by line. I had a girl who I'd grown up with commited to an institution. And every time I hear this song I think of her. Hmmm.... perhaps I should go find some stones.

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'Is it not me?
Am I not culled into your clutch?'

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!
Seein them in July,, im gonna cum!!!!

I think this is about mental illness and suicide. it just all fits. It reminds me of the book shutter island actually.