anyone got ideas about this song?

This song is my favourite song. It simply expresses the courage of letting go af all that which hurt you, betray you and mistreated you, to embrace something unknown with will and joy!

This song has very strong ties to my last relationship. I believe it is about when you reach that desperate point at the end of a relationship when you have nothing else left to give but pure, unadulterated love, stripped of any pride. ("Sweet surrender is all that I have to give")

I think the relationship was a sour one that she is just learning to let go of, though her heart still truly cares for him, regardless of how he or the relationship may have hurt her.

Anywho, sorry for rambling. This song just really gets me every time, and I feel very passionately about it.

I like this song quite a bit too.

I think it's about dying and "crossing the last line." It is someone discovering the afterlife. It was very different from what she expected/was taught to believe ("when every step I took in faith betrayed me..."). At the same time, it is something wonderful and peaceful. She realizes that everything that happened in her life "didn't mean much," and doesn't matter here.

I like the idea that the afterlife is probably something completely different than what any of the religions think, because, let's face it, they are just guessing.

i think this song has a lot to do with a new relationship. i think often a lot of people hold off from real feelings just because they have been hurt in the past. i think sarah is saying that the past experiences dont matter to this next relationship. that he takes her in with no questions asked, stripped of ugliness. even though im a guy, i can relate to this song, ive been hurt, and its hard to open up to the next girl, in fear. but then you find someone that is truly differnt than the others youve dated. sweet surrender. give up all.

I think this song is about having someone accept and love you in spite of your faults. I think we all have been in relationships where we don't feel good enough for that person because we are not perfect. No matter what kind of life you had in the past, that will never stop people from falling in love with you.

i think this song is about going back to a relationship where you have completly messed up. she is going back to the person she hurt, telling them that she has changed. they take her back without question.
"And I don't understand
by the touch of your hand
I would be the one to fall"
that, i believe, is saying that now that she is back with him, how could she have ever strayed, when everything she has with him is so perfect.

This song is just amazing. I think it's about someone who is in a relationship, but has fallen in love with someone else. The life I've left behind me is a cold one... I've crossed the last line... Sweet surrender...

To me, this song is about living in pain and sorrow for so long that you have just decided to give up. You find something at the end of the road... something beyond the darkness that you have lived in for so long... and you just decide to surrender. Beautiful. I love Sarah. She's amazing. This song is wonderful.

this song is very good. i love the beginning, & her voice is so soft and angelic. <3

i LOVE the first two lines. i agree with whoever said that she's trying to put behind her bitter past, but also learn to embrace it. and as cliched as it sounds, her past has made her how she is now.

"where every step I took in faith
betrayed me
and led me from my home "

and later she finds the guy, who loves her for who she is?

but im kinda confused, is she still with that guy. or she just reminiscing about the past:
I miss the little things
oh I miss everything

perhaps, yes she has found the "one" but she's still struggling to put down her past which she still misses. or something along the lines of that.

I think it's just being tired with everything about life.

Not suicidal, not in the least. Just jaded to everything. She can't offer resistance anymore, just her surrender.

She's so tired of fighting everything, the only new thing to do is to give in.

I agree with magic man, the lyrics are too dark, too religious and too suicidal to mean about a relationship.

Rehab.
"It doesn't mean much
it doesn't mean anything at all
the life I've left behind me
is a cold room
I've crossed the last line
from where I can't return
where every step I took in faith
betrayed me
and led me from my home"
The life she left behind didn't mean anything, because of what she was doing with it. She knows she went too far, but at the time she thought her friends would tell her when it had gone too far.
"You take me in
no questions asked
you strip away the ugliness
that surrounds me
are you an angel
am I already that gone
I only hope
that I won't disappoint you
when I'm down here
on my knees"
The rehab center took her in without judging her, and helped her to get clean and sober. She looks upon the people who helped her as angels, for helping her do what she had deemed impossible before. She hopes that when she goes back out into the world, she can stay clean and not disappoint them.
"And I don't understand
by the touch of your hand
I would be the one to fall"
She doesn't understand how a substance, or perhaps alcohol could make her into a slave to it, how she could be so weak.
"I miss the little things
oh I miss everything
It doesn't mean much
it doesn't mean anything at all
the life I left behind me
is a cold room."
She misses her old life, but she knows it wasn't really anything worth missing.
I'm sure lots of people will disagree with me, but when I listen to this song and think about the lyrics, thats what they say to me.

Hi, everyone. I remembered hearing Sarah linking this song to the film Leaving Las Vegas in an interview...turns out it was on VH1's Storyteller's show. Here's the quote:

"The initial inspiration came actually after seeing Leaving Las Vegas, which I found to be this beautiful and tragic love story of these two people who were rather pathetic, both in their own rights, and yet completely accepted each other for who they were; all the beautiful things, and all the ugly things. That's a lot to do with what this is about, accepting ugly things, and being able to appreciate the fact that someone can love you for all those nasty things, especially when you think you are completely unlovable. There's some great comfort in that."
-Sarah McLachlan, VH1 Storytellers

This is a song about doing smack.

It's funny how a matter of moments can change one's concept of a piece of music... I never liked this song until I saw/heard it in concert... There was a screen behind the stage on which they projected different abstract pictures for the songs, and the first few notes in Sweet Surrender were perfectly synchronised with bolts of lightning. The awesome but simple imagery struck me (so to speak) with the raw honesty of this song. I love it now. And I'm glad of that.

i think she is talking about the belief system she grew up believing, was wrong. " where every step I took in faith betrayed me and led me from my home ".

I like the idea that the afterlife is probably something completely different than what any of the religions think, because, let's face it, they are just guessing.

Even if the song has nothing too do with that statement. Dhavel. nice thought on faith. hey its all man made......sorry people but it is.

when you are in love with someone and you feel that they are giving you what you need and you are affraid that what you have to offer wont be enough, when you surrender your love and trust and faith into this person and being scared that after giving all that he will be dissapointed.

Each of the above is a reasonable interpretation and caused me to think I may be off-base with my own understanding of these very beautiful lyrics. That is until I received a little visual confirmation when I saw Sarah perform Sweet Surrender live on Mirrorball. There are a few clues she uses on-stage, so consider this unconventional viewpoint:

Sweet Surrender connects with the “taboo” world of BDSM (Bondage, discipline, Domination/submission, sadism & masochism). Specifically, it’s the anthem for the sensual and sexually submissive man or woman. This group of people by the way are not weak, tortured, abused, cruelty seeking saps being pushed around by leather clad perverts with whips. Submissives are the opposite side of the coin to a dominant partner and each are usually extremely advanced in their knowledge and pursuit of the very highest expressions of human sexuality and sexual fulfillment.

BDSM folk refer to themselves as being in “The Lifestyle,” and refer to the rest of culture as “vanilla.” Viewing their sometimes torturous acts without knowledge of the complexity of what is really going on, can lead a voyeur to believe the worst, when, in fact, these partners act cautiously, with precision and safety, with complete consent, and with a keen knowledge of each other’s desires and limitations. Ethics, respect, and conduct in lifestyle relationships, believe it or not, far exceed those of most vanilla relationships. So, onto the song....

The first verse mentions the life she left behind as a cold room, a place where she found betrayal. This refers to vanilla society and vanilla relationships where conduct is often sketchy. Crossing that ‘last line’ is stepping into a new world of anticipation, kink, sensuality, and sexuality.

Submissives are willing recipients of the leadership and desires of their dominant partners. They freely and consentually give the gift of themselves to exist under their dominant’s wing provided they have found pure trust in this partner. The submissive essentially ‘surrenders’ to their partner. Each find great beauty in this act: it’s ‘sweet.’

Dominants literally train their new submissive partners. The submissive consentually alters their very being to suit the desires and style of a trusted dominant partner. The unuseful ‘ugliness’ is therefore stripped away. The dominant is a trusted mentor, leader and lover; an ‘angel.’ The submissive’s role and deep desire is to please their dominant. They work very hard not to ‘disappoint’ them...and yes, submissives surrender and melodramatically spend alot of time on their knees when in the presence of their angel.

The anticipation the dominant can build in the mind of the submissive is very powerful. Dominants are masters in toying with the mind of their partner to heighten sexual pleasure. Following such build-up, the submissive can emotionally melt by the slightest 'touch of their hand.' Sarah asks, “Oh, I don't understand how, by the touch of your hand Oooh, I would be the one to fall.” The seduction is that powerful when performed correctly. Sessions with D/s couples are intense and may lead to extended periods of time before they occur again. If you had a partner with a skill set like this, you would miss them too. Even if you were apart for just one day.

Watch Sarah closely performing Sweet Surrender on stage in Mirrorball. Her facial expression turns to that of a sneering, sultry, lusty li’l vixen. It’s very, very sexy. At one point during the chorus, she gives her hip a polite though obvious spank. She lowers her gaze and bows with hands outward as she sings, “When I'm down here, on my knees.” Every Dom’s dream! And finally, Sarah energetically “cracks the whip” not once, but twice with the cord of the microphone--while maintaining that perfectly lustful sneer.

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When I heard it, it struck me as a two level metaphor equating death and the lost of virginity, death as a lover, and sex as le petit morte.

All of course are mostly wrong, and rexbannah you need therapy...
But Sweet Surrender is about a person who's pretty much gave up on life completely
and meets the person of her dreams
who just so happens to be her killer
"You take me in
no questions asked
you strip away the ugliness
that surrounds me"

Wow... i doubt she's talking about s&m, rexbannah. lol. I believe like everyone else mostly is saying she is speaking of finding someone who completely accepts her for who she is, nicks and scratches and all, and makes her feel like she can give up all her feelings to this person without being judged. This does not necessarily have to be a lover- it can be a close friend too. If anyone has seen the movie Home Room with Busy Phillips and Erika Christensen, the girls at the end of the movie embrace crying while this song plays. It is very effective because the one girl had not wept in years or allowed herself to feel much for anything, and she has surrendered to the other girl and allowed her to take her in and make her surrender to her emotions.

Hi everyone! I agree with xranshi´s interpretation, in the sense that Sarah (or the character in the song) is going back to a harmful relationship, but this relationship is not with a person, as xranshi says, but with a drug. Based on some images in the video, I conclude this: she is a rehabilitated drug addict, but her new life is so cold, so boring, (and so hard given her latent addiction), that she prefers to consume the drug again, in other words: to surrender. She has tried to behave well, but gets so disappointed, that she prefers to return to the old times. Watch the video, it provides some clues: the “new” Sarah, an elegant, discrete woman, looks for the "old" Sarah (who is an enthusiast of excesses, to judge from her dressing), picks her up from the road, and takes her home, like rescuing her.
Then look at that strange scene when the "old" Sarah hides under the sofa in which the "new" Sarah sits, and the alternation between them; maybe that means that the "old" Sarah has come back to stay definitely. And when the song says "I miss everything about you", Sarah looks a little desperate, like people do when craving for drugs.
She doesn’t care for her new life, it is disappointing, and that’s why she says:
"It doesn't mean much
it doesn't mean anything at all
the life I left behind me
is a cold room."

I like "kay-cee"`s interpretation, too. And "nitzki"`s interpretation is perhaps the most authorized, but the video has some things that make me think on other alternatives.

Greetings from Mexico