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This won't be the last from me, its just the start.
I hope that he keeps you up for weeks like you did to me.
I will hold a candle up to you to singe your skin.
Brace yourself: I'm bent with bitterness. I can't foresee.
When your apologies fail to ring true,
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in hot pursuit.
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin.
Absence follows.
In the end, I win every time as ink remains.
Sour tastes prevail as you play back the tape machine.
When your apologies fail to ring true,
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in such hot pursuit.
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin.
Absence follows.
I hope that he keeps you up for weeks like you did to me.
I will hold a candle up to you to singe your skin.
Brace yourself: I'm bent with bitterness. I can't foresee.
When your apologies fail to ring true,
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in hot pursuit.
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin.
Absence follows.
In the end, I win every time as ink remains.
Sour tastes prevail as you play back the tape machine.
When your apologies fail to ring true,
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in such hot pursuit.
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin.
Absence follows.
Lyrics submitted by weezerific:cutlery
Track duration: 02:52
"For What Reason" as written by Christopher Walla, Benjamin Gibbard
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Genius.
"This won't be the last you'll hear from me; it's just the start"
Ben is obviously enraged, and firmly declares that he isn't through destroying her. He doesn't necessarily wish her any physical harm, but he is set on destroying the idea he had of her perfection.
"I hope that he keeps you up for weeks like you did to me"
This where he reveals the most frustrating part of his dilemma. He spent a lot of time thinking about her. What she might be doing. Where she might be. Not answering phone calls. Unexplained absences.
"I will hold a candle up to you to singe your skin"
He is ridding her life of her. Destroying everything he had that reminded him of her, because it hurt too much to see it. I'm particular to the Burning the Pictures theory.
"Brace yourself; I'm bent with bitterness we can't foresee"
This is where I am convinced that he is not speaking to her literally, but only to the Idea he has of her. He viewed her as perfect, and this image is what he is telling to brace itself. He will destroy it because he now understands that this image never truly existed (See "Only" by Nine Inch Nails)
"When your apologies fail to ring true"
Pretty self explanatory. She is saying 'sorry' for the transgressions she was committing (probably the lack of interest in the relationship), but it's similar to how a person says 'I'm sorry this happened to you' when someone has a bad day. They don't truly feel it is their fault, but they do feel a form of guilt for it happening.
"So slick with that sarcastic slew Of phrases like 'I thought you knew'"
This is quite possibly the most revealing part of the song. This girl was distant. She was distant on purpose so she didn't have to feel guilty IF (very important key word: IF) she had to eventually let him down.
"While keeping me in hot pursuit"
She obviously wanted and told him to keep trying. She probably said something along the lines of 'Don't let me push you away', and encouraged him to stick to that. He kept trying to get her to Truly be in the Relationship. He continued to say endearing things and loving compliments, and she accepted, despite her hidden agenda.
"Tracing the plot finds Skin touching skin"
This is also a key part in the song. He is looking back during this time in which she kept him in pursuit, and realizes that these unexplained absences, this Disdain that she spoke with...she wanted to/was fucking someone else the entire time. She didn't necessarily cheat on him. They may not (and probably weren't) Officially Together, but she was definitely stringing him along while she was fucking this other guy. That bitch.
"Absence follows."
This is probably a reference to the Disdain that the distant one speaks with towards a person that they are not truly in love with. She never respond to his calls or anything because she was either she was in the vicinity of the guy she was fucking, or she continued to lose interest in Ben, and therefore, continued to lose interest in answering his calls.
"In the end I win every time This ink remains"
He feels he is on the higher ground in this situation because he knows he is the mature one. While a simple "Ben, I don't love you anymore." would have sufficed, she decided to use him as a backup plan, and therefore hurt him in many ways. This line is his way of declaring that he is able to get past her because he can express this situation through written word ("The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature" -Henry Miller) She, on the other hand, can't mature through this, because of the vile way in which she treated this situation.
"Sour tastes prevail as you play back the tape machine"
This may be a reference to the message he left when he finally tells her that he knows she has been with someone else. There is that sense of dread when you have been found out. Or it may be a reference to the messages he left afterward, trying to get answers, and how frustrated she was with Ben or herself for not actually having any.
"When your apologies fail to ring true
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in such hot pursuit
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin
Absence follows "
My final prospectus:
He dedicated himself to her. She didn't necessarily cheat, but she was unable to return the same courtesy. She was disdainful in the end (or maybe even throughout the relationship), and it ripped him to shreds. Despite his passive nature, he was so distraught by this that he is finally letting it be known how insanely fucking petty he is towards her at the time that this song was written. She promised she had no feelings for this guy, but eventually made it too obvious through her absence in the relationship.
I hope that he keeps you up for weeks like you did to me-The person spent nights thinking of (her, him)
I will hold a candle up to you to singe your skin
Brace yourself: I'm bent with bitterness-He is hurt, hes bent with bitterness from a failed maybe relationship
We can’t foresee
When your apologies fail to ring true-Who ever is appologizing to him well it fails to remain true
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in hot pursuit-The person still likes the person they are pursuing
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin
Absence follows
In the end I win every time-The person who wins, wins with maybe his words or actions better yet he or she may always have the last word
This ink remains
Sour tastes prevail as you play back the tape machine
When your apologies fail to ring true
So slick with that sarcastic slew
Of phrases like "I thought you knew"
While keeping me in such hot pursuit
Tracing the plot finds
Skin touching skin
Absence follows
My take on "I will hold a candle up to you to singe your skin" is that he is going to illuminate her (her personality, her transgressions) and use the truth about her to burn her (something like a scathing rebuke of her personality). I think this would also fit in with his ability to write a song about her/what she did and the idea that that constitutes a kind of victory.
And I am quite possibly wrong about this, but I had always thought that the like was " brace yourself; I'm bent with bitterness AND can't forsee. This meant to me that he was so angry that he was going to lay into her without regard to the possible negative consequence of being so brutal to her.
and, austinagg, I think that yours is a pretty good interpretation of the chorus - I always had trouble making sense of it. Although, in that line of thought, I think that "absence follows" is referring to her and (perhaps) her distant behavior... and actual physical absence a lot of the time - thus it would be another clue that he should have picked up on
So yeah, when you have a crush on someone you basically think about them a LOT and in turn keeps you up at night.
The singer is constantly "in hot pursuit" of this girl but learns that she actually likes another guy. So he gets jealous and "bitter" because he never knew that she didn't like him and she never told him.
I don't know if that makes sense to you, but it makes sense to me...
That being said, he's telling her that this is not over, that she hasn't heard the last of him (i.e. this song that he wrote). She caused him tons of grief and nights without sleep, which he is now wishing the same fate upon her ("I hope he...like you did to me"). He is angry and burning the pictures of her in an attempt to forget her ("I will hold a candle up to you to singe your skin"). He's telling her to brace herself...he's pissed at her ("bent with bitterness")
When the cheating was discovered, she obviously apologized, but it was not sincere...she's not sorry for what she did ("When your apologies fail to ring true"). Her apologies were laced with sarcasm ("...sarcastic slew"), and she justifies it by saying "I thought you knew." She's been playing games with him, making him think all along that she's been faithful, and that it's only been him in her life...when it's the opposite ("While keeping me in hot pursuit").
As for the chorus:
"Tracing the plot finds skin touching skin"
He's looking back at all the signs that he should have seen, or chose not to see. If he would have recognized the signs at the beginning, he would have seen that she was being unfaithful.
"Absence follows"
It's over, he's done with her.
When it's all over, he wins because he got the last say in with this song. "This ink remains" is the song that he's written...it's not going anywhere. "Sour tastes prevail as you play back the tape machine" The terrible feeling she gets when she plays the song on her radio, because she knows it's about her.
There's the really long explanation of this song.