Dana, my darling, I'm writing to you.
Cause your father passed away, it was a beautiful day
And I don't want to bother You anymore,
I used to hope you'd come back
But not anymore Dana.

My eyes might have betrayed me, but I have seen
Your picture on the cover of a filthy magazine
And I think my heart just cannot handle that
Dana, my darling, would be so bad.

Dana my darling I'm writing to you
Your mother passed away it was a really rainy day
And I didn't mean to bother you anymore
Your mother wished: Come visit your faters grave, Dana

Your father disowned you because you have sinned
But he did forgive you in condition he was in
And I you won't do those things anymore
Dana My darling I'm waiting for

Dana O'Hara oh, Dana my dear,
How I wish that my Dana was here
Little Dana O'Hara decided one day
to travel away, faraway

No, you can't surprise me anymore
I have seen it all before
But it seems I cannot let you go
Anyhow, Dana, Dana, Dana, Dana

And I think that I told you, I'd wait for you forever
Now I know someone else's holding you,
so, for the first time in my life - I must lie
Lie's a sin, mess that I am in,
Love is not the thing I feel know
I promise you: I won't write again 'til the sun sets
behind your grave

Dana, oh, Dana I'm writing to you, I heard you passed
away it was a beautiful day
I'm old and I feel time will come for me, my diarys
pages are full of thee

Dana O'Hara oh, Dana my dear,
How I wish that my Dana was here
Little Dana O'Hara decided one day
to travel away, faraway




By Fistan Majere



Lyrics submitted by Fistan

Track duration: 06:01


Letter To Dana song meanings
Add your thoughts

29 Comments

sort form View by:
  • 0
    General Comment:Lol first post & escuse mi english, i found this site & come to this song asap.

    The part of "lies being so sinful" is like religius, the first time i listen to this song carefully i though the story is the same of "shy".(but the "unopened" relation i didnt knew =D

    maybe dana was "exiled" from her family, the dautgher of the priest or like XIX strong protestant father xD, she got pregnant & they sent her to "magdalene sisters institute" & later she had to sell herself to survive ¿with child xD? her religious father never gave up nd so the song writtes itself.

    The singer may even be the shy little church boy priest helper, madly inlove 4 her.

    someone ask the writter of the song plz O.o
    Flag DaJointon January 09, 2013   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Seems to me like this 'Dana' was your typical filthy friendzoning bitch who decided to travel away (probably to the Big Apple) and ended up stumbling onto the cover of some cum rag magazine. Her loser boyfriend mules around while she sucks dicks in NYC. Then everyone dies, except for this dude who is left haunted by the ghost of slutwhores past. FRIENDZONED FROM THE GRAVE!
    Flag jetoraon October 23, 2012   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning:Does anyone else think that Dana, at the end, does a suicide (maybe because of her sins or something)? Because she "decided one day, to travel away, far away", so she decided to die. Maybe...
    Flag ChocoVanillaon July 18, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I've always loved this song, but fairly recently I was reading the Kalevala (a Finnish epic poem) and there's a chapter in which a warrior goes to battle so that he may die an honorable death. He gets a message about his family members dying off, and in every case he more-or-less says, "forget those losers", up until his mother dies; and then he returns home.
    Flag craniiferon June 09, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I think that this song is part of a story that starts with Mary-Lou. In the song Mary-Lou one of the

    lyrics says "your little angel ain't always so clean" and this is talking about her child. The lyric "

    My eyes might have betrayed me, but I have seen Your picture on the cover of a filthy magazine" says

    that Dana is not a "clean" Person. The lyrics also allude to dana and her father having a bad

    relationship and her and her mother have a good relationship.The mothers dying wish was to meet the

    father who was the man in Mary-Lou. He sees Dana as his sin and does not want anything to do with her.

    The man it seems is sending the letters also has importance in the fact that he must have met the

    parents. I also think he is the man in Shy. After saying " I promise you: I won't write again 'til the

    sun sets behind your grave" he goes to a diner to drown his sorrows and meets a waitress who he falls in

    love with, but is afraid because she's " Acting like my Dana". I believe the waitress to be Talullah.

    They fall in love untill the waitress starts flurting with the Long Haired Drummer and so the man leaves

    them to be happy and years go by. He is now old and hears of dana dying and writes for the last time.

    Meanwhile dana keeps reciving letters but does not read them. As time goes by she sees the letters as an

    old woman, but is afraid to read them which is said in the song Unopened.


    Flag OrionX2on March 26, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"Little" Dana,,
    Does he speak about her age?
    Or he calls her "little" because he believes that she didn't do anything important during her life?
    Flag maryLou19on February 24, 2011   Link
  • +1
    Song Meaning:I think that O'Hara could be 'oh,joy' (translated from ancient greek) because it would make sense and they often add other languades as french (the end of this chapter) latin (dont say a word) or their mother language,finnish (??) (wrecking the sphere) and so on...
    Flag Oohyeahon March 11, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Well, well, all of you have done excellent with your interpretations - there is no need to keep on. The song is awesome because it truly evokes sadness and yearning. I suggest you listen to SA's remake of such song named Letter to Dana (Return to Sender), it's just as great. It has the sadness and the yearning, but there is a heavy ambience of darkness behind the song, everything sounds very mature this time around. The song is included in their Ecliptica (Remastered) album; a Slience (Remastered) album will come out as well and it will contain Wolf and Raven remake, which by the way in slow-paced, but beautifully haunting.
    Flag owner of silenceon September 17, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:~ I think it was likely also literal, as the day he died on was a nice day. ~

    At the time this song came out I'd buy the literal interpretation. But 4 albums later, their lyrics are far too poetic and metaphorical to be taken at face value.

    ~The lie he's telling is that he no longer loves her.~

    The lie is that "I'd wait for you forever", but since Dana has someone else ("someone else is holding you"), he has no choice but to move on.
    Flag Zughiaqon September 07, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"so, for the first time in my life - I must lie
    Lie's a sin, mess that I am in,
    Love is not the thing I feel know
    I promise you: I won't write again 'til the sun sets
    behind your grave"\

    This is the only part that hasn't really been explained.

    He's a very unsinfull person, so this is the only rare occasion where he would lie.
    The lie he's telling is that he no longer loves her.
    He knows that she doesn't even care about his letters due to her unresponsiveness, so to not bother her anymore, he will only write to her after she passes on. (Which he does)
    Flag theolliebon June 01, 2008   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

Back to top
explain