The song 'Fortnight' by Taylor Swift and Post Malone tells a story about strong feelings, complicated relationships, and secret wishes. It talks about love, betrayal, and wanting someone who doesn't feel the same. The word 'fortnight' shows short-lived happiness and guilty pleasures, leading to sadness. It shows how messy relationships can be and the results of hiding emotions. “I was supposed to be sent away / But they forgot to come and get me,” she kickstarts the song in the first verse with lines suggesting an admission to a hospital for people with mental illnesses. She goes in the verse admitting her lover is the reason why she is like this. In the chorus, she sings about their time in love and reflects on how he has now settled with someone else. “I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary / And I love you, it’s ruining my life,” on the second verse she details her struggles to forget about him and the negative effects of her failure. “Thought of callin’ ya, but you won’t pick up / ‘Nother fortnight lost in America,” Post Malone sings in the outro.
Two jumps in a week
I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you, boy?
Flying on your motorcycle
Watching all the ground beneath you drop
You'd kill yourself for recognition
Kill yourself to never, ever stop
You broke another mirror
You're turning into something you are not
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Drying up in conversation
You will be the one who cannot talk
All your insides fall to pieces
You just sit there wishing you could still make love
They're the ones who'll hate you
When you think you've got the world all sussed out
They're the ones who'll spit at you
You will be the one screaming out
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Oh, it's the best thing that you've ever had
The best thing that you've ever, ever had
It's the best thing that you've ever had
The best thing you have had is gone away
So don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you, boy?
Flying on your motorcycle
Watching all the ground beneath you drop
You'd kill yourself for recognition
Kill yourself to never, ever stop
You broke another mirror
You're turning into something you are not
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Drying up in conversation
You will be the one who cannot talk
All your insides fall to pieces
You just sit there wishing you could still make love
They're the ones who'll hate you
When you think you've got the world all sussed out
They're the ones who'll spit at you
You will be the one screaming out
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Oh, it's the best thing that you've ever had
The best thing that you've ever, ever had
It's the best thing that you've ever had
The best thing you have had is gone away
So don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Lyrics submitted by piesupreme, edited by Gallagator, Rambooji
High and Dry Lyrics as written by Edward John O'brien Colin Charles Greenwood
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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!
More Featured Meanings
Fortnight
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
This song is about selling you soul. The narrator is talking about this person who has compromised his integrity for success. It talks about how you destroy your foundation when you sellout like this and that the people you have done this to impress will end up hating you if you fall. You will have nothing to support you when you fall and everyone will be against you. Anyway, that's what it means to me but it could also be about a relationship i guess.
What makes this song even better is that it's Thom singing about himself, about how he has experienced fame and all the pressure that comes with it to become something you're not. And this song is like him saying he knows what happens and he doesn't want to change but maybe it's inevitable.
@wiseone This is kind of out there, but could the boy on the motorcycle be Bob Dylan (who had a bad motorcycle while going through one of his reclusive phases). At that time, Dylan had suffered a major backlash from a lot of his original fans who were mad at him for going electric. They felt like Dylan had left him "high and dry" to pursue fame. This song sounds like someone who is bitter and doesn't want to be left behind when someone they love goes on to seek recognition.
I think this song is about Thom Yorke, who is talking to himself and making sure that he doesn't leave himself behind. "You broke another mirror, you're turning into something you are not." He's checking himself and singing about it so that he doesn't forget to remain true to himself.<br />
@wiseone I think you are spot on and I think this could easily be the person you love holding up a mirror for you to check yourself and your inflating ego and the fact that you are prioritizing things and people over them and pleading for you to not forget who they are, as well as reminding you to also not forget who you are most importantly.
@wiseone there is no antagonist. This is introspective. It's a song to himself. Tom York is the boy. Think again
To me,this song is about someone who seeks acceptance from others by pretending to be someone he's not and by losing his real self.These people don't really care and even if they accepted him,sooner or later they'll abandon him just like anybody else and at this point this person will have lost everything.My life story.
@Joekubrick i know i'm very late to this, but are things looking up for you?
In my opinion, I think this is about a boy, who is with someone who he loves and cares about, but takes them for granted, takes his feelings for granted, and treats them badly to make himself look cool... to impress the people who don't even care about him. and he's changing who he is to fit in with them. and in the beginning the person just wants them to stay, and not to leave them, because they love them and would do anything for them, but being hurt becomes too much. The tables turn, once he realizes what he's done... "Drying up in conversation You will be the one who cannot talk All your insides fall to pieces You just sit there wishing you could still make love" ... now he is speach-less and heartbroken cause he lost the one person who really cared for him, because he realized the people who he was trying to impress would probably not even care if he dropped off the face of the earth. and now he was left, "high and dry" he lost the best thing he had... and he's the only one to blame
@gabbivolp3 Love your interpretation, and I think it is a thing that happens a lot nowadays with young people.
This song to me is about someone that is being pulled in all different directions by people. He wants to be everything to everyone. He wants to be everybody's friend, so he goes with the flow and does what he thinks everybody else wants him to do. Then he loses himself in the process and his worst fear of being the one that everybody hates starts to come true. Even though they might not necessarily feel that way, to him they do b/c the person that they know is not really who he is. At the end of the song, he's lost the best thing he's ever had, his identity. IMHO
I can't derive a precise meaning, but I think it's basically about people who are sad and lonely to the point where they crave attention, but they're afraid to go get it, and they're afraid to try to live happily, so they gradually destroy themselves and, ultimately, kill themselves for attention and pity.
As a side note, I absolutely love this song.
just my interpretation, but I feel like this song relates more to a failed relationship. you're with a person, and everything is going fine, but over time they just change, for whatever reason. maybe they think they're better than you (i.e. "kill yourself for recognition"). and you desperately don't want them to leave you high and dry. maybe I'm completely off base here but I'm pretty much going through a situation like that right now and this song is something i feel like I can relate to.
"sussed out" - finally grasping the concept of how the world works. I think this song is about thie guy who is trying to impress everyone, and wanting acceptance. But everyone sees through his disguise and don't bother with him and he's lonely so he's left high and dry.
It's about someone telling someone to calm down and sort the way they veiw life out. You shouldn't go through life doing things to impress others, you just end up looking childish, showing off and acting the fool. The person will end up thinking your a fool. If you make yourself out to be more then you are you will probably end up being caught out.
Yeah personally I think that this is about someone who is compromising themselves to fit in somewhere. And ultimately leaving the ones that were there for the "real" them, high and dry. Then when they're up there, in with them, they turn on the person and see that he's been a fake all along.
The the best thing he's ever had has gone away, originally the person who was there for him in the beginning.
Such an interesting song. I felt like the writer is reasoning with an emotional "dare-devil" willing to risk everything, even life, for recognition...attention. Pleading with someone that is deeply loved but getting no substance, no conversation, no love. Dare-devils risk their very lives, in this case resulting in a relational death, leaving loved ones tragically high and dry.
The best rendition I have ever heard was by Eddie Miller of Sunderland, UK.
@navgator the first reveiwe that realizes the writer is the protagonist. This song is totally introspective. He is writing about himself. Once you understand this. No more interpretation is needed.