This songs about the working class struggle. How when you're young you aspire and dream of what great career and wage you're going to have when your older but society and the class system trap you. The government set you in your mould. You know that you can be more but the mortgage payments and debt are like a ball and chain around your ankle. This song is about this wanting to be something bigger and the irritation in knowing that it can never happen so its pointless trying.

it's not exactly about "walking the road of life"....kinda but not really.

it's really about the idea that life is hard, difficult (the bitter part) and generally not fun. but it is also amazing. life can have its high points, and those are often truly beautiful (the symphony part). it's about the fact that this seems like a contradiction, but it all just seems to work

it's not exactly about "walking the road of life"....kinda but not really.

it's really about the idea that life is hard, difficult (the bitter part) and generally not fun. but it is also amazing. life can have its high points, and those are often truly beautiful (the symphony part). it's about the fact that this seems like a contradiction, but it all just seems to work

this person wants to change for someone inwardly, but he's afraid to show this change because in front of other people he's someone completely different...like the movie!

This song is my absolute anthem. I think it's a lot less specific than some people seem to think. It's just about modern life, the hapiness and sadness. We try our hardest to survive, to make a life for ourselves, become "better" people, but in the end we die, leaving behind all the good and all the bad we've ever done. Life is a bittersweet symphony - it has its ups and downs, but in the end, it has to end somewhere.

It's easy for me to get depressed about this song, but man...there's something in the melody and lyrics that's so uplifting, so true.

very well put, arkyoprtrix. I completely agree. The band is commenting on how difficult life can be to the point whre you feel like it's all for nothing. I think the whole change ic an change part is saying like yea, i could probably be a better person, but what's the point. I'm comfprtable here in my mould because i know what i'm doing. I actually have a version of this by oasis so i guess i've never heard the original, but insightful song and lyrics all the same

basically a man who feels hopeless and writes a song about, maybe he messed up somewere, because he says i can change I can change, and he might even be bipolar since it says im a million different people in a day. he never was in touch with god and now he is on his knees letting him know that he needs him..


idk but it all adds to me as a pour lost soul :( a man trying to get his life toghter this song can mean alot of things.


great song i love it

this song does go with cruel intentions because its a war inside of him. He's trying to change, he's the product of his upbringing and trying to change for her.

i think its about the way that in life theres always good and bad but it all works together in the end, and it always works out somehow
you just have to take the good with the bad and accept it

i almost forgot about this song. till one day, someone said bittersweet. then all of a sudden, i couldnt stop thinking about it. i was sitting in a meeting and all i did was think about how the lyrics went. got home, and i played through it about ten times. great song. if it wasnt for someone saying bittersweet, who knows if i would ever hear it again. the first time i heard it was in Cruel Intentions. about two years ago.

For a long while this has been my Favorite song! I love it so much!!! It triggers many memories!

This song means so much now. Yesterday I was with my two best friends. We were driving on a really curvey road and wrecked. The car flipped and is totaled. We all came out without a scratch. This song was playing and I'll never forget it. God is real. God is here. In the driver's seat, was my best friends wooden cross. God is real.

Back in 1999 I was engaged to be married. A small wedding that would be held at this beautiful huge wooden lodge up in Oregon that sat alongside the Applegate river. The date was set to be day before Christmas eve 2000
That summer, July of 99 my Mother was diagnoised with terminal cancer. My Father, Grandmothers, Granddads, and my only sibling- my big brother had all died within just a few years before Mom got her death notice. I was a complete wreck and could not handle ANYTHING. My mom was all that mattered, and the blushing bride to be, I certainly was not. I just couldn't wrap my head around losing my Mom and my future in laws were so annoyed and very selfish (to say the least).
Even worse, was I came from a completely different upbringing. My parents were so cool, admired by many, mostly I believe because of their free, natural, and spiritual and beautiful connection to eachother, our family unit, the earth, mother ocean, rolling around in the long green grass, waterfalls, sunsets, and in our home ....always great music of the 60's & 70's. They entertained people from all walks of life. More on the liberal side, hair cutters who from behind their chairs entertained with humor & compassion. Ah yes....the wonder years! Life was so perfect, all of us so IN LOVE. Lots of affection, hugs, & kisses everyday, and always a comforting I love you as we each were tucked into bed. Music was a huge part of our environment & and yes, my parents did make it to Woodstock.
Speakers in every room of our house, all around outside (we had the old school wooden HOT TUB (oh yah)! Nudity was a given and no big deal at our country home on top of the hill. Dad crafted this kick ass out door shower so you could privately rinse your body under this huge old oak tree laced with so many lush strands of ivy, it was like a jungle!! EVERYBODY LOVED BEING A PART OF the magic my folks created. Total Peace.
Many years of joy , fun, and seasons in the sun!
Then, as the 80's came to a close, june 5th 1989 EVERYTHING changed. It was that particular day, just before dawn, my only brother, thier only son, tragically taken. The four of us together for the last time in that hospital room. As the life support was turned off, the three of us holding on to our once so perfect boy, his life draining from his body, the sound of the monitor, then the flatline....... I knew, even though not quite even an adult yet, that life as we knew it flat-lined as well. I watched it destroy my parents. My old man, my strenth, my best friend...we did manage to take a couple trips together, hitchhiking around Ireland, Cutting hair, & diving in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.... Mom was inconsolable, all of a sudden someone I didn't even know. They both began to self destruct, no more peace parties, alcohol became the devil, for both, actually all three of us. I was in College 150 miles away, rang Dad in the middle of the night to let him know I would be coming home the following day ( as I often did on weekends. After a 52 min converation, his voice became faded and weak, he lowered himself to the floor, with me on the ohone, he died right then & there of a massive heart attack. He was 55. My unncle got there first and it was said that he was on the floor with the phone laying over his heart. That same day (night), just befor midnight my Nana (Pops mom) died too.

Now here I was less than two years later standing behind the chair of my own salon numbly listening to all the girls and my clients go on & on about the big day ahead, my wedding. I was so out of it. Mom was told she had a year to live, I turned all plans over to the eager inlaws ( who couldn'y have made it more out of my Moms element, I think Ore. was like a 7 hour haul. I recall wondering what the hell I was doing marring into this right wing, ultra conservative, republican, farming family, who certainly had no interest in the life I had nearly 30 years before they laid eyes on me. Nothing was smooth, cool, or familiar to me. I was so numb, and they could care less. My Mom begged us not to move so fast, but I believe part of my just wanted her to be alive to see me marry. Marry into a life that was so inside the box ( Mom knew I'd never be able to conform into the doting farmers wife. It was all about them, and I could feel it manifesting into the most predictable, uptight, and unromantic day of my life......

I had just finished witha client when The Verve came over the sterio at the salon. The intro instantly got me. Something in the melody captured me, and I felt freedom in the music ofd this song I'd never heard before!!! Without even understanding or knowing the song meaning or lyrics, I turned to my girls and said "THIS IS IT!! " I want THIS SONG AT MY WEDDING. Once we are announced, I want to turn around and walk away from the alter with this melody blasting out over the lodge, river, and countryside........
Of corse the family didn't get me at all,
But I got my way with my song choice! And It gave everyone goose bumps, and it was perfect!!! It was just the sound, that intro....made me feel strong, and free........................................................................................................ several years later, unhappy in my marriage, disgusted with how these people expected me to conform to their values and mondane way of their world. Discouraged with me because I became so removed because of my grief. Mom passed the following fall. I was a mess_ BIG TIME and I hated the world and the people I had in it. Selfish cowards, treated me so unkindly. I was expected to pull myself together strait away and take care of my husband afterall, he had made a few sacrifices to allow me to be close to my mom. "It was his turn now", Is what his mother said to me less than a week following my Moms death.

I have fought the good fight, standing up for my rights, I head west to the ocean every chance I get. Boy do they hate that & find it ever so inappropriate for a wife to take solo trips to the river mouth where I released each of them. I have trees there planted up o the cliff over looking where the river meets the sea. Dad and I planted my Bro's together, all those years ago. It is strong and healthy. Its roots run deep into the earth. Several feet away is Pops tree, and the hillside is scattered with perrenial wildflowers in memory of ma.

Holy SHIT, Had no IDEA I WOULD TAKE THIS SO FAR!!!

ANYWAY....point being....it was one late summer eve, I pulled away from my church, out there in my sacred spot, just after sunset. I poped The Verve in and played Bittersweet Symphony as I drove away from the ocean, a smouldering smoky orange red aftermath of an Indian Summer sun-set in my review mirrior, I , for the first time, listened to the lyrics, word for word, and found myself at home with the irony of this chosen song. I laughed, outloud wondering if anyone paid attention to these lyrics at my wedding. Surely, they'd never 'get it' or even invest any thopught or time in my choice.


A great choice, wouldn't you agree????



SORRY SO LONG!
LONESOME, guess I needed a release.

A Coward dies a thousand deaths..
A Brave man dies, but once.
~ An Indian

Peace and full hearts to you all.........

Hope you understood my story.
I'm pretty intense about love.
IN the end, It's all that matters!
Tell someone you love, that you LOVE them TODAY...Follow-up with a HUG & let them be 1st to let go!!!!



Excuse spelling errors (too long to proofread!!! I bet it's BAD!

wow marnsmarie.......that was amazing! ridiculously long, but amazing all the same! thanks so much for sharing that, you made my day. that story has really given me hope. :)

amazing song to jam to....blare it and it will just make you feel so alive..

its about the journey of life c:

gotta love cruel intentions!!

"Cause it's a bittersweet symphony this life.
Trying to make ends meet, try to find somebody then you die.
You know I can change, I can change, I can change,
but I'm here in my mould, I am here in my mould.
And I'm a million different people from one day to the next.
I can't change my mould, no,no,no,no,no,no,no"
favorite verse

this song makes me want to bawl my eyes out every time. i've always just been so in awe of it.. even when i was a youngster.

Basically, two of the deepest, most amazing moments of my life are as follows...

1) 2nd July 2005 - I am lucky enough to get a ticket for Live 8. The highlight of the day comes when, as well as seeing my favourite band, U2, Chris Martin introduces Richard Ashcroft to the stage to sing "probably the greatest song of all time" with Coldplay.

2) 29th June 2008 - Glastonbury. The Verve, back in the world, are headlining the final night. Ashcroft goes on a rant, "it's a struggle, life's a struggle, and Monday morning may be a struggle for a lot of you, working a job you despise, working for a boss you despise. A slave to money then we die". And then the strings hit, and everyone knows what's coming. The crowd ERUPTS. I will never forget it, I couldn't hear the band over the crowd singing along.

This song will live forever. An anthem of life itself. THIS IS MUSIC.

marnsmarie- wow.... thank so much for sharing.. but can u explain to me what exactly the words of thsi song means.. im still not so sure.. from what everyone else says, it's about the stages in life.. but i think its something deeper... is it?

This songs meaning is that Life is good, but has its bad moments ( Its a bittersweet symphony , this life). (Ive never prayed but tonight im on my knees yeah/need to hear some sounds that recognise the pain in me yeah/let the melody shine let it cleanse my mind I feel free , now.) He is saying he is desperate for someone to understand him and recognize the way he feels. and the music(melody) understands him and makes him feel free. When He says (No change, I can change, I can change, I can change,
but I'm here in my mould , I am here in my mould.
But I'm a million different people from one day to the next...
I can't change my mould , no,no,no,no,no,no,no) He is saying that he tries to be someone else(im a million different people) so people can understand him, but he cant change who he really is as a person (cant change my mould)

This song makes me feel on top of the world! I love the line "your a slave to money then you die" great lyric. Very true as well...

Its like... putting on the different masks of life, but in the end, you're still you

When I think of this song, I think of teenagers waking up in the morning and getting dressed as usual. While getting ready, they are mouthing the words to the song. They then leave their house with their bags as if they were walking to school. As they are walking, they appear together on the same road. As the song nears the end, the road splits up and all the teenagers hug and say goodbye to each other as they each go on different paths.

The paths to me, is their futures as all people have different goals and destinations, but we are all walking on this road called 'life'.

ok im a metal and rocker fan.......... i love this song, and for some reason it makes me think of football??(youtube chicago bears video) and i just love this freaking song, and i listen to it when im depressed or something good happened to me.

I really like Dragon's interpretation and mine is rather similar.
I don't think this is a depressing song, rather, one of truths that all of us connect to. This song means that. We are all connected. "I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down, the one that takes you to the place where all the ends meet." I listen to this song when I am feeling stressed or meditative, pretty much two polar opposites right there. When stressed, it reminds me that we are all walking the same path and everybody else is going through something worse than I am...it's all part of life. Like many other songs, it is an interpretation of the meaning of life and how each individual is different, and yet, the same.

Then again, that's just my opinion.

There is some sort of magic in this song. I don't know what it is, but it bewitches me. It really does. It is one of the most powerful pieces of music I've ever heard in my life, and others seem to agree with me.

It's my anthem, too.