Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state
A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake
No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber
Until I realize that it was you who held me under

Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs

No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world

And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack
And all around the world was waking, I never could go back
'Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn right open
And finally it seemed that the spell was broken

And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open
And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open

No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world

Snow white's stitching up the circuit boards
Someone's slipping through the hidden door
Snow white's stitching up your circuit board

No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world

Snow white's stitching up the circuit boards
Someone's slipping through the hidden door
Snow white's stitching up your circuit board
Someone's slipping through the hidden door



Lyrics submitted by KatherineKissMe

Track duration: 04:36

"Blinding" as written by Florence Leontine Mary Welch, Paul Epworth

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, EMI Music Publishing

Lyrics powered by LyricFind


Blinding song meanings
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69 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment:This song always reminds me of Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones. At first she lives in kind of a fantasy world and dreams of marrying her prince, but living in King's Landing opens her eyes to how the world really is, and she's disillusioned with all the romance and glamour she used to idolize. "No more dreaming like a girl, so in love with the wrong world..."
    Flag candysushion April 26, 2013   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:obviously this song is about growing up. because when you are younger, you believe that everything is happy, and you believe in your imagination and care nothing about anything else except for your toys or make believe things like Santa claus. so in this song she says in the first verse applies to being young and in the waking world but never quite awake, because you dont notice what is around you when you are younger, but then there comes a day where you realize true life, where you dont believe in what you used to as a kid, and you see what is going on around you.
    Flag sidney95on January 11, 2013   Link
  • +1
    My Interpretation:This song is soo beautiful and I relate to it now more than ever. My boyfriend and I just broke up. Not because he wanted to but because he is going to college and must learn how to grow up (he's a big mama's boy). I know he loves me and still wants to be with me but I understand he has to become his own man first. Despite this horrible heartache, it has given me the chance to focus on MYSELF and my career.

    "Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state
    A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake
    No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber
    Until I realize that it was you who held me under"

    The whole time I was with him, I was happy and just content with life. I was focused on him that I was slowly losing my focus on my future.

    "Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
    Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs"

    The pain of losing him is constant and I feel it all over my body. Somedays I can't shake it out of me, he was a part of me.

    "No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
    No more calling like a crone for a boy, for a body in the garden
    No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
    No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
    No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong one"

    Despite the pain of losing him being around me constantly I can't let the thought of him and me get in the way of my life. He has to be "dead" to me, like he's gone forever. I know there's a chance we will be back together in a year' time but I can't let that hope cloud my decisions on the future. No more calling for him. No more dreaming about life with him. I can't think like that, I need to focus on my passion.

    "And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack
    All around the world was waking, I never could go back
    Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open
    And finally it seemed that the spell was broken"

    My life has been broken and flipped upside down with him gone, but I can't go back to him not now. The "spell" of him has to be broken. I can't let him cloud my mind, every thought has to be about my future.


    This is just what the song means to me.
    Flagged autumnromeon August 19, 2012   Link
  • +2
    General Comment:Illusion .... everything feels like illusion. Once you break through, you can't go back. You don't crave the things you once did. You know that others around are just in love with the wrong world and you don't blame them because you have been too.
    Flag AmberBon August 07, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:So I just now heard this song for the first time and I just lost my boyfriend due to brain cancer in november..and I just now heard this song and this song is EXACTLY what I have gone through since he died.This song describes it to a T!!!She is definitely looking for a way back to him!!She is looking for him and then wakes and realizes that she will never have him again "no more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world" to me this means the life she had or chose with him probly wasn't that healthy.She loved him no matter what she was involved in or regardless of any circumstances she chose to stay with him hence (the wrong world).This could also mean she is in love with dreaming, (the wrong world) because he is only there."No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone" Being in a dream with him as if he was never dead.As if it never happened.As if he had never died."calling like a crow" this means to me that she calls to him when she enters a dream.The song all together represents A girl that is so lost in her head from losing him that she wants to travle to that world to find him.:)
    Flag RobynBrookeon May 16, 2012   Link
  • +1
    My Interpretation:I love reading everyone's own interpretations on this song. It's amazing! I love it so much, and I think this is the song that sealed my life in devotion to music of Florence and the machine. This is the only artist in the world that has made me feel so much while listening to their music. Not many other artists speak to me in this way and I really don't know where I would be or who I would be without her songs, and possibly this song on it's own.
    For me, it's the darkest songs on Lungs. At first, the song told me about being kept in the dark and untrustworthy people. That was what I fist though when I hear it the first time, but when I actually bought the album and started to listen to in again, it was different. Then I believed it was about death and how death can changes us and how we can never brings the the dead back to life.
    And then my opinion changed again, and I loved it more that anything. It was about untrustworthy people and death. But most of all, it was about growing up: the change from child to teenager. It tells the story of how death can sometimes force you to grow up and how growing it's your choice and you have no control. And in the case of this song, holding onto your childhood means you losing touch with the people around you, mainly your age. "It was you who held me under": Our parents. "All around the world was waking, I never could go back." keeping up with every other kid your age, leaving fairytales and games behind. "Because all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open, and finally seeing that the spell was broken." Innocence dies.
    Flag firefly155on May 14, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Flo is singing about realising that she's being seeing an illusion and is going to stop dreaming so she can live in reality as it is.
    Flag thejaguarchickon May 13, 2012   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:To me this song is about healing after breaking up with someone. You're coming out of that world, getting over the love you had for them and realizing that what you had is now gone.
    Flag blackenedroseon April 21, 2012   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning:"Snow white's stitching up the circuit boards," I believe, refers the infiltration of the US government by Scientologists in the 1970s. To prove to the government that they weren't really fucking weird, Scientologists, composed of no less than 5000 people, hacked, wiretapped, and infiltrated 136 goverment agencies and destroyed all government records that portrayed them in a negative light.

    Now, the context to the song is an analogy on some sort of vague premise of "Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind." If you haven't seen Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind, you should. Because it's awesome. And will help you understand this song better.
    Flag Cobehnon April 19, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:When I first heard this song, I thought it was the usual break-up song, with a little 'Florence' added to it, however since looking over the lyrics, I see it as more of a song about death, or even an abortion.


    Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state
    A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake
    No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber
    Until I realised that it was you who held me under

    For this part, I imagined two things. The first being the baby's thoughts - It has been created into the world, but it has not yet been awoken (born). The baby is slowly becoming conscious within its mother, but at this stage is nowhere near breaking out of the womb (slumber). The only thing keeping the baby in this world is the mother, and it is starting to become aware of the mother's constant presence holding onto it.
    Alternatively, this could be the mother's perspective, where she has found out that she's pregnant, and for some reason (say she's under-age or the baby was a mistake) she cannot bring herself to tell the world about the baby, and keeps it to herself and nothing could break into this secret. She also sees the baby as a weight, that's keeping her down and holding her under.


    Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
    Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs

    I imagine this being how both the mother and baby feel during the abortion. The baby feels this physical pain ripping through and killing it, while the mother feels either relief or guilt. As there is no actual emotion in the lyrics, I imagine it being a mixture of both, or an empty feeling running throughout her body as the baby dies inside her.


    No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
    No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
    No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
    No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
    No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world

    In this, I see the mother's regret after the abortion. She dreams about what her baby would be like if she hadn't gone forward with the abortion, and wishes to reverse death. She also mentions a 'boy' and 'girl'. I think she is referencing the boy as the body in the garden instead of the two being separate thoughts; she's disposed of this baby and left it to ultimately rot in the rubbish. She is dreaming of what could have been her child, and she is so in love with the child she dreams about, and this dream is blinding and overtakes her life, and she refuses to believe that this dream is a fake, wrong world.


    And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack
    All around the world was waking, I never could go back
    Cos all the walls of dreaming, they were torn right open
    And finally it seemed that the spell was broken

    I see this as again being either the mother or baby's view before or during the abortion itself. For the baby, the thunder and lightning is a metaphor for the end of their world and life. Other babies are being born, but this baby will not. The walls of dreaming could be a metaphor for any method of killing a baby during an abortion (Use your imagination! :P). Finally, the baby dies and it's 'spell' of living on earth is over.
    Alternatively from the mother's perspective, the thunder and lightning could refer to the physical or more likely mental pain she felt as the baby died, or the fear of being pregnant in the first place. I think the 'world was waking' refers to the tipping point that convinced her to have an abortion (the world was waking to the fact she was pregnant. Perhaps people noticed her putting weight on, for instance) and from that point there was no way she could go back and nothing could change her mind. She thought that she could tear apart the idea of ever being pregnant and discard it like a bad dream. The word 'seems' in the last line implies the idea of false hope. I see the mother believing that everything will return to normal, not anticipating any feeling of guilt.


    And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open
    And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open

    In this part, I see the mother and baby's thoughts become one on the very last seconds of the baby's life, hence the exact same words repeated. I imagine the first line being the baby shaking and its eyes opening just as it dies and the mother regretting her decision of having an abortion at the exact same time, her eyes metaphorically flying open to the realisation that she is killing this whole life and part of her and her dream. This moment of connection between the two separate worlds sparks the mother to feel indescribable regret, hence the metaphor of the two worlds being torn apart that is evident throughout the song.


    Snow White's stitching up the circuit boards
    Synapse slipping through the hidden door
    Snow White's stitching up the circuit board
    Synapse slipping through the hidden door

    I think this is displaying the end result of the abortion. I see this as being the mother saying the first two lines, then the baby, that has now died, saying the second part. The mother is creating these fantasies (Snow White) to stitch over the holes in her life and/or mind from the abortion. A synapse (in biological terms) is an area where signals are transmitted inside the body. I think this is saying that the mother has completely broken down and has lost the ability to communicate (Her ability to send signals have been lost through a hidden door).
    The second part of this bridge is not completely finished first time round, symbolising the death and for the second time round, the last line is whispered which always makes me think of a ghost taking one last breath.



    I know this interpretation is right out there and has as much chance of being correct as me marrying Taylor Swift, but it’s really personal and deep, and would make an epic music video.

    Another translation I have is about drugs and drug abuse, but I won’t go into the whole concept of mind control through drug abuse… :P

    … Then again, it could just be a song about a rough break up, you never quite know with Florence!
    Flagged Anon95on April 14, 2012   Link

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