Lyrics for Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone as interpreted by PLANES

Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone Lyrics
There are beads that wrap around your knees
That crackle into the dark
Like a walk in the park, like a hole in your head
Like the feeling you get when you realize you're dead
This time we ride rollercoasters into the ocean
We feel no emotion as we spiral down to the world
And I guess it's worth your time
Because there's some lives you live
And some you leave behind
It gets hard to explain
The gardenhead knows my name

Leave me alone, for you know this isn't the first time
In fact, this is twice in a row
That the angels have slipped through our landslide
And filled up our garden with snow
And I don't wish to taste of your insides
Or to call out your name through my phone
For the glory boys at your bedside will love you
As long as you're something to own

Follow me through a city of frost-covered angels
I swear I have nothing to prove
I just want to dance in your tangles
To give me some reason to move
But to take on the world at all angles
Requires a strength I can't use
So I'll meet you up high in your anger
Of all that is hoping and waiting for you

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Theosepiphanes
04-30-2003

Rated 0 
WOW this is my favorite song and no one has posted anything!

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ataraxia37
06-24-2003

Rated 0 
i'll post... this song is about an evil woman.

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Theosepiphanes
04-07-2004

Rated 0 
Well the "Gardenhead" is a little man who lived across the street from Mangum after he dropped out of college. That's jinda what Mangum said on a live XFM session. I suggest you download this session, it's pretty good aside from the cheesy radio DJ. You can find it on www.elephant6.com

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Abex22
05-09-2004

Rated 0 
well i for one believe that a song has many meanings-and even if Mangum said that the gardenhead was a little man across the street -i want to find a ..more interesting interpretation of this song. anybody?

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Mertek
10-08-2004

Rated 0 
The word "garden" is in a couple of NMH songs, and I think it has some kind of universal significance in all of them. A reference to the garden of eden, perhaps? Any thoughts on that?

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Theosepiphanes
02-21-2005

Rated 0 
well, as mangum said, it's a combonation of two songs (obviously) Gardenhead and Leave me Alone. If I remember correctly he wrote leave me alone right after getting out of a bad relationship. And i didn't mean Garden head was ABOUT a little man, I meant that that was who the Gardenhead was. He always poked his head out of the bushes outside the little shack they played in, that is, until he was invited in.

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ike368
04-11-2005

Rated 0 
i think this song is about a breakup.

"There are beads that wrap
Around your knees that crackle into the dark
Like a walk in the park like a hole in your head
Like the feeling you get when you realize you're dead This time"
this part is talking about the feeling you get when you realize you're actually broken up and not going to get back together.

"we ride roller coasters into the ocean
We feel no emotion as we spiral down to the world"
talking about the attitude some people have towards life. people are often too apathetic to stop themselves from subconcious self-destruction. they just keep doing themselves wrong until things just break, and they dont feel bad or upset until then.

"and I guess it's worth your time
Because there's some lives you live
And some you leave behind
It gets hard to explain"
here, he's saying how you might think after it's over that your love had been wasted that whole time (you know, cause now it's all over), but remember that it was worthwhile, because it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.



"Leave me alone, for you know this isn't the first time
In fact this is twice in a row "
they've broken up before. this is the second time, and seems like the final time.

"That the angels have slipped through our landslide
And filled up our garden with snow
And I don't wish to taste of your insides
Or to call out your name through my phone "
i dont know, that angel part seems too happy for my theory, but the last two lines there sound like denial. like he doesnt want her back. or atleast wants to believe he doesnt. she may be trying to say she wants to get back together, but he's saying he doesnt want to get into all that again.

"For the glory boys at your bedside will love you
As long as you're something to own "
there are other boys he thinks she could easily get. he thinks, though, that they dont love her like he did/does, but that they'd be better for her(and him) since they caused eachother such emotional pain before

i dont know, the last verse is probably about how he actually wants to get back together too (even though he maybe knows deep down that it's bad for them)

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vincent h.
06-13-2005

Rated 0 
"Follow me through a city of frost covered angels
I swear I have nothing to prove
I just want to dance in your tangles
To give me some reason to move
But to take on the world at all angles
Requires a strength I can't use
So I'll meet you up high in your anger
Of all that is hoping and waiting for you"

That is the most beautuful and wonderful group of lyrics I have ever read. Seriously...they leave you speechless. That is pure poetry. The first time I read/listened to this song, these lines nearly brought me to tears, just because of how jaw-droppingly gorgeous they are. Jeff Magnum is some sort of God, that much I know.

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csjames75
10-01-2005

Rated -1 
This is one my all time favorite songs. Some great comments here and I want to throw in my armchair analysis

I think the Gardenhead line is an allusion to the Garden of Eden and, despite the fact that Magnum said the Gardenhead was a man who lived across the street, I think it's also a word play

Gar-den-head ... sounds an awfully lot like "God in Head" or even "God in Heav'" ... if any of you had church choir back in the day, heaven was prounced in hymns as "heav"

I think this is one of the most Bibilical and religious of NMH's songs. And I especially like that passage as well, Vincent, that starts, "Follow me through a city of frost-covered angels"

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Inert
11-11-2005

Rated 0 
Oh man I love this song, best version has to be live at Jittery Joe's, it has a very fast tempo and it's completely awesome--- if you haven't heard it go do it now~

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ASpicer3
03-15-2006

Rated 0 
"This time we ride roller coasters into the ocean
We feel no emotion as we spiral down to the world."

I've always felt that this means that life is a roller coaster which, inevitably, ends in dead.

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hab204
07-14-2006

Rated 0 
is it just me or is the transition between songs the single best thing ever?!

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breast cancer
09-05-2006

Rated 0 
id always assumed he was saying "because there's some lies you live and some you leave behind." that makes more sense

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evilflex
12-12-2006

Rated 0 
"For the glory boys at your bedside will love you as long as you're something to own"

haha, how true.

I think it's cool how NMH uses musical themes that are heard over a number of tracks. Like how the brass part of April 1st permeates through the end of Gardenhead.

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cfonts
01-21-2007

Rated 0 
this is my favorite NMH song. it's so true, some guys arn't just looking to get action, and these are the guys who won't just open doors and bring flowers to "get some poon", but they'll do it b/c they are genuinly nice. girls seem to stray from these type of men and are more fixated on the assholes. at least in highschool. in my opinion, girls love assholes. this song very much reminds me of myslf in teh fact that i never go as to call a girl on the phone, or give an extra effort becasue i know all the "glory boys" will be chosen in the end anyways. but i still treat them with respect, both the good looking ones and the ones who may not have been blessed with stunning features. it's real. these guys may be chivalrous, but we all know it's fake chivalry and the girls know it and don't care. if any girl can help me figure out this rediculous state of affairs i'd be glad to discuss it with you.

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hab204
02-11-2007

Rated 0 
i know cfonts, we're dumb like that. must be some weird evolutionary thing. but don't turn cynical on us! we'll come around..

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cfonts
03-18-2007

Rated 0 
haha i still have faith

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trixareforkris
04-23-2007

Rated 0 
wow i just got this cd. i've had in an aeroplane over the sea for quite some time as one of my favorites.
this song is absolutely stunning. the last verse is incredible. it summarizes my thoughts on a relationship exactly.

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Playwright
05-15-2007

Rated 0 
I think this song is what happens when you realize that what you thought was love was meaningless sex to the other person. And, consequentially, giving up, because the beauty is no longer there; instead, jealousy and apathy. They might both want the same thing, but it's already lost between them. It's a pretty simple interpretation, but it makes a lot of sense if you look at it that way.

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two-headed boy21
06-10-2007

Rated 0 
this is how you write about a breakup mangum is a genious

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oldfishtremble
06-29-2007

Rated 0 
"the glory boys at your bedside will love you as long as you're something to own."

i can't even start to imagine what's going through jeff mangum's mind, but whatever it is, i like it!

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camkid2
07-21-2007

Rated 0 
on the unreleased album, Beauty, Jeff talks a lot in between the songs and he said that this was two songs put together, the first one he wrote on a cigarette box while he was waiting for his friend to get off of work. the second one he says is about two people, one who he recently broke up with and another person who was living in LA at the time.

maybe that helps someone's interpretation!

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OHcomely
01-16-2008

Rated 0 
There's a certain beauty to the raw energy of this song.

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menoseloso
02-12-2008

Rated +1 
I believe this line "This time we ride rollercoasters into the ocean we feel no emotion as we spiral down to the world" is an allusion to the song Nowhere Fast by the Smiths. morrisey sings "And if the day came when I felt a natural emotion, I'd get such a shock I'd probably jump in the ocean."

Because there's some lives you live
And some you leave behind
It gets hard to explain
The gardenhead knows my name

Perhaps the gardenhead is a reference to the hedge at the end of the garden from the Zen story?

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rcmyers
02-18-2008

Rated 0 
i seriously rock out to this song on my guitar!! This is in my top 3 NMH songs (oh comely, 2 headed boy pt 2 are the others)

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