> All we are in photographs
> Will never be taken

I'm not good at these interpretations as I tend to get "technical" sometimes, whatever that means. I think that represents the counterfactual events that never happened. Not only the events but how they were, and how a photograph will never be taken as these events never occur.

what is the meaning of this song? i cant seem to figure this one out...could anyone help?

I'm almost tempted to put this in a Christian perspective, though it can be interpreted a bunch of ways. I would only do so on the basis that Isaac Slade grew up as a minister's son and he and Joe King both went to Faith Christian Academy, as well as on the basis of the Biblical quote:
"Man was born to trouble like sparks fly upward." (Job 5:7)

Anyway, if you do take this from a Christian/religious perspective, it could be about the futility of a Godless life, the emptiness ("Is this all we get to be") and searching for the "something" that is there even in the "quiet", referring to God, and about the narrator's wish to be closer to God ("Tell me everything cause I want You here.")

Of course, to be fair, this is easily translated otherwise as well. This could be about a guy who is too timid in his relationship, and the girl who just wants to know him better ("Cause she barely even knows him but if she could see inside") and who wants him to know her better ("Everything is quiet as she waits to tell him who she is") but who is put off by his introverted lifestyle ("The girl, she gets away"). The "photographs [that] will never be taken" could be those from the dates they never had, the memories they never made, etc.

Another possible translation: Perhaps he is in the military, and she waits for him to come home ("It's a kiss sits upon on her lips that waits for planes and battleships"). Maybe he never came home, and this is what Slade is referring to with the Job reference. Maybe the photographs never taken were of their lives had he come home.

There's a few ideas. I'm not really sure which I like best.

i've always though it was about a woman who was abused by her husband/ whose husband neglects her!
i guess all parts of the sond dont explain it but i think some do.
"Everybody knows it but no one tries to stop it" could easily be about abuse.
"All we are in photographs Will never be taken" shows that he doesnt care/love her enough even to take a picture of them together
"She wants to be a dancer and he has got a picture On his wall and it's a sailor in a new port every night" this shows that he doesnt care about her intrests. and the sailor part might be reffering to him being "in a new port every night"
after analyzing the song i think that its about a woman who wants to be loved by her husband but he ignores her
idk thats just what i think!
tell me what you think!

i think this is about a crappy relationship. neither of them care for each other but they pretend like they're happy. they're opposites. the second verse i kind of get the feeling that the guy is in the marines. i don't know maybe I'm just making this up :)

There is a movie called As Good As It Gets, the main character at one point asks a group of depressed psychiatric patients "What if this is as good as it gets?"
As I listen to the song I get the same feel when they sing "Is this all we get to be absolute"

Maybe I am wrong, wouldn't be the first, but the way I imagine things play out with the song is that A guy fell in love with a girl but she the girl who 'got away' and she fell in love with another man leaving the first guy upset.
In the next verse it's talking about her and the man she ended up with. They might have been in love but the relationship is either breaking apart or it might be possible he was in the military and died, I'm not sure. Anyways it leaves the girl alone and upset.

"All we are and all we want
40 years come and gone
All we are in photographs
Will never be taken"
We all have an image of how things are going to be, but how we see things in our mind and how things actually work out usually are different. The first guy imagined he'd end up with a girl, but she fell in love with another. The girl though she'd always be with the guy she loved but for whatever reason she is not.

So the question we all ask: "Is this all we get to be absolute?" We want an answer so we search everywhere to get one. When it is sung,
"Quiet but I'm sure there is something here
Tell me everything cause I want to hear”
I think he is referring to God, because if we don’t have the answer and no one else we know does, then the only person we can turn to and ask the question to is God, but of course even he won't give us a direct answer. So we are just left wondering.

Cool
beans.

What an awesome song.

I love the line "Is this all we get to be absolute".

Very...philosophical thought provoking.

I think this song is about a boy and a girl who are too afraid to tell each other what they feel for each other. They don't know each other well, and they have different interests and lead different lives, but they feel something there. She walks away because he never tells her what he feels and they both have lives to live, and that's the end of relationship that never happened and the pictures that were never taken. The suspicion of reciprocal feelings is all they get.

I agree with berekeley88, this song to me explains the thoughts of a boy and girl who have feelings for each other that they never express due to fear, unsureness, and not knowing what the other thinks. And because their lives took them on different paths, they never will be. There are no photographs of them, only thoughts of what could have and should have been.

It makes me think, I need to do something, to say something soon. Because this guy will be leaving for the other side of the country in a couple months, and I need to know if the odd looks, awkward conversations, and running into him everywhere were just mere coincidence.

i think its just about missed oppurtunities. i think the war references may be personal, but the "waiting for planes and battleships" refers to waiting for the fireworks and big bangs but nothing happens. and i just think the references to him as a sailor shows how she is still on his mind, and how they are seperated, as if they wont see each other again and they wont get their opportunity again.

I think this song is about the relationship between a soldier and his young wife, as her feelings for him dwindle while he's away at war. By the time he comes back he's a different person, and the distance and the time have severely impaired her attraction to him. She confesses her desire to move on, and forty years later the soldier remembers her and what life might have been like had they stayed together.

this song is about when isaac was at a college party and he was looking to make himself a drink. he went over to grab a bottle of "absolute" vodka to make himself a cocktail but he wasn't sure if anything was in it, so he sang, "quiet but i'm sure there is something here, absolute." luckily, there was a little bit of "absolute" vodka still in the bottle.

Body: don't stop reading you will regret it!
girl meets a boy on a messenger


crazy1 86: hey baby!!!


h0tNsPiCy91: who is this???


crazy1 86: ur secret admirer!!!!!


h0tNsPiCy91: oh really.... quit lyin! who is this???


crazy1 86: i loved u the first time a stared in your eyes...


crazy1 86: i think about u everyday... you are my dream come true.


crazy1 86: we met once! i dont think u remember tho.


crazy1 86: i cut myself because the pain takes away my feelings of u.


crazy1 86: u will see me sometime tonight....


h0tNsPiCy91: ..WHO IS THIS!?!?!?


crazy1 86:dont worry.... ill take very good care of you...


crazy1 86 had signed off.

The girl was so scared she locked all her doors and windows. She made sure her room was secured. She wasn't sure if it was a joke or for real. She didn't know when he was going to come. The girl was so frightened she decided to sleep with her little sister. The girl dozed off quickly.

Then she heard a knock on the window. The girl slowly walked to the window. It started knocking louder. The girl looked through the windows and saw nothing... just some of the tree branches. The girl went back to bed with her sister. The bed was wet and had a pretty horrid smell. Maybe her sister wet the bed... the girl checked and found blood everywhere. The girl panicked. She didn't know what to do. She ran and hid in the closet in case the killer was there for her. While looking through the cracks of the closet the girl saw a shadow. It was dark, so she couldn't figure out who it was. She started to get more frightened. The shadow crept closer to the closet. The girl closed her eyes as if it was a dream. Then suddenly he opened the closet door and pulled her out.

Her parents found her dead the next morning. She was completely skinned and hanging in her sister's closet. The younger sister was also found skinned and dead.

PART 2...

Two years after the Smith sisters deaths, the parents had a baby boy. The girl's room became a guest room and the little sister's room where the murder took place became the baby's room. The baby grew up to be a successful kid.

One night he was on the computer and received an instant message.


h0tNsPiCy91: Hey lil bro!!!


2seXay4u: Who the eff is this?


h0tNsPiCy91: It's your big sis.


2seXay4u: I never had a sister. I'm an only child.


2seXay4u: This is some kinda joke, huh?


h0tNsPiCy91: Mom and dad never told you?


h0tNsPiCy91: I died 15 years ago with your other older sister.


h0tNsPiCy91: We were murdered in your room which was once my little sister's room. She was killed in bed when I was sleeping. I was killed in the closet and skinned to death.


2seXay4u: Quit lying. I never had a sister. If I did my parents would have told me. Whatever. Your stupid.


h0tNsPiCy91: You don't believe me? Well if you wanna look in your closet floor.


h0tNsPiCy91: I carved my name and the time and date I was being murdered. Then I carved my little sister's name.


h0tNsPiCy91: If you don't believe me little brother check the internet. Google on ''Smith sisters murdered anonymously''.


h0tNsPiCy91: I gtg little brother. I love you and mom and dad soo much. I can't believe they kept us a secret from you.




The boy checked the closet. He saw the carvings. Was it true? He surfed the internet and information was there about the anonymous murder in the house. The next morning the boy went downstairs. It was so quiet. Maybe his parents were sleeping. Hours later the boy found his parents in their closet skinned and hanged. Then he found more carvings on the ground. They said ''I TOLD YOU I WASN'T LYING LITTLE BROTHER, I LOVED MOM AND DAD.... BUT THEY KEPT ME A SECRET. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. WELL I'M FREE FROM THIS COLD WORLD, I WON'T HURT YOU LIKE I HURT THEM. I LOVE YOU!"

- LISA SMITH

This is a death chain letter. If you don't repost this in the next hour, the parents will kill you at night. They will kill you!

DON'T BELIEVE ME? LOOK IT UP IN GOOGLE! its the first link click on it and scrool down after the story....it gives real names and the real story

I'm still not exactly sure what this song is about, but it always makes me think of watching films and not being entirely satisfied with the ending, or not knowing what's going on. "I've seen this one before" made me think of that at first, and then the line "Cause she barely even knows him" makes me think of couples in films and how unbelieveable they are because they can only show you an hour or so of these characters, and you feel like they barely even know each other. Then "Everything is quiet as she waits to tell him who she is" would be the silence in the cinema at the big reveal at the end of the film.

"Is this all we get to be absolute" - Sometimes films leave you feeling like "Was that it?" And then the lines:

"Quiet but I'm sure there is something here
Tell me everything cause I want to hear"

really make me think of when you don't get the plot, or maybe you've missed a bit, so you ask someone what's going on, but they'd just say "Quiet!" 'cause they don't want to miss the rest just because they were explaining one bit to you. But he wants them to tell him everything because he doesn't understand.

"It's a kiss sits upon on her lips that waits for planes and battle ships " - Again this line has such cinematic imagery; you can just imagine some old 1940's romance with the girl waiting for her sweetheart to come back from the war or something like that. "She wants to be a dancer" - Maybe this is pushing this interpretation but isn't there a film called Flashdance about a girl who just wants to be a dancer? lol perhaps that's going a bit far.

"All we are and all we want
40 years come and gone
All we are in photographs
Will never be taken" - They'll never be taken because it isn't a real story, and it's being filmed instead of the photographs that make up the memories of people in real life. 40 years come and gone in one quick hour in the cinema.

I don't know, it just makes me think of the soullessness of films and how you're never quite satisfied after watching one, because it always feels like something's missing, but my interpretation is nothing like what anyone else has written so it might just be my cynical distrust of the film industry, lol.