Lyrics for A Passing Feeling as interpreted by dragonflower44

A Passing Feeling Lyrics
Everything is gone but the echo of the burst of a shell
And I'm stuck waiting for a passing feeling
In the city I built up and blew to hell
I'm stuck here waiting for a passing feeling
Still I send all the time
My request for relief
Down the dead power lines
Though I'm beyond belief
In the help I require
Just to exist at all
Took a long time to stand
Took an hour to fall

I'm stuck here waiting for a passing feeling
Stuck here waiting for the passing feeling
Still I send all the time
My request for relief
Down the dead power lines
Though I'm beyond belief
In the help I require
Just to exist at all
Took a long time to stand
Took an hour to fall

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planetearth
07-03-2004

Rated 0 
I found this to be really interesting, you probably will too. From Elliott Smith's last interview before his untimely death he made these comments on this song: "I was really into staying up four or five days at a time while recording. Some of them didn't take to long like this one. There was a co-producer early on but he didn't really co-produce. He just walked angrily in and out of the room because I knew what I wanted to do. I'm playing every instrument on this one except one. There's also a fill in this song that's almost all kick drum and sounds really funny."

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Mopnugget
09-20-2004

Rated 0 
"everything is gone but the echo of the burst of a shell"

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MarshmallowPeep
11-18-2004

Rated 0 
I couldn't understand the lyrics from listening. Now, after reading them, I see how freaking depressing they are.

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zeddammit
01-18-2005

Rated 0 
Mopnugget has that first line right. Minor thing "took an hour to fall" instead of "just an hour to fall".

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_ellie
02-03-2005

Rated 0 
It's true, ES has a way of making everything sound like faintly interesting conversation.. Even suicidal feelings. Especially suicidal feelings.

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Jasor31385
02-18-2005

Rated 0 
Elliott has a way with making sad songs seem eerily happy.

The lyrics are usually pretty depressing, yet his voice and the instruments mask that.

It reminds me of how his life might have been. Hiding his problems with a happy fasade.

-Jason

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twodoor
04-11-2005

Rated 0 
Elliott Smith had a damn good taste in choosing appropriate titles. A passing feeling is something we all feel at one time or another. Each song he writes seems to convey a single emotion that the rest of us looking up at him seem to forget about.

He's waiting for some emotion to feel in the midst of an emptiness. It seems ridiculously simple but these are deep lyrics that everyone can empathize with.

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delial
07-21-2005

Rated 0 
i have a live version of it, he sounds so...can't really describe it, but his tone of voice says more than the lyrics themselves even do. really gets that feeling of defeat and self-blame across.

"in the city i built up and blew to hell,"

yep...

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emptyjewelrybag
08-18-2005

Rated 0 
the built-up city = getting clean (takes a long time)
blowing it to hell = sticking a needle in your arm again (takes an hour if your dealer is picking up)
dead power line = veins
passing feeling = opiate comedown (sucks!)

is this obvious to everyone, or just users?

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Clitoroid
09-23-2005

Rated 0 
I just figured it was about taking some drug while you're still on the comedown from the last time you took it.

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devastatingdecline
12-08-2005

Rated 0 
I think that this song is more appropriately about waiting for the craving to go away. He's been trying to recover for so long and its so hard and it took so much work and now he just wants to shoot up again. For me, being in recovery meant that if you were having a craving, you feel like you have to chain yourself to a bed so you won't do anything stupid. So, rather than being about drugs, I believe its about relapse.

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mtolsky
01-17-2006

Rated 0 
i think the most poignant image of this song is

"still i send all the time
my request for relief
down the dead power lines"

he knows his attempts for help are fruitless, and that's just so depressing.

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TenderLumpling
03-28-2006

Rated 0 
It is quite obviously about his addiction to drugs. And how he was doing so well accomplishing so many things, and then "blew it all to hell." Now, all he can do is wait until he can buy more of the drugs that will give him a feeling of happiness, though it'd pass soon after. Though, without it he wouldn't "exist at all." He regrets getting himself into all of this, and he "sends a request for relief." Or else the relief he is requesting IS the drugs, I'm not certain. Either way it's quite obvious that he regrets it, but knows he can't get rid of the addiction, at least not on his own.

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charcoalsketch
04-11-2006

Rated 0 
definitely about heroin.

shooting up, in particular.

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72telecaster
06-11-2006

Rated -1 
"took a long time to stand
took an hour to fall"
Anyone realize that it took an hour for Elliott to die? Kinda weird. It's like he wrote that line about his own death.

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n8eightyseven
01-25-2007

Rated 0 
this is my favorite song at the moment, but every song has held that position at one time so i dont know if thats saying much.
anyway. i also have the live version and its just as good as the one on basement. his voice sure is shot in the recording, but it like delial said, it just adds to the song.

but i love the words to this song so much now that i understand what they mean. "took a long time to stand, took an hour to fall. im stuck here waiting for a passing feeling...."
this song in my mind is about being out of drugs and wanting more than anything to kill any negative feelings with a happy high. and yet its so true that the feeling is only passing.
but what i love about elliotts songs is that even people who have never done drugs could relate to waiting for some passing feeling.
i dont feel like im making much sense. all i know is that this song makes a lot of it in my head.

oh, and i've always thought it was "my big quest for relief." but it doesnt really matter and i could very well be wrong.

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naiveunsatisfiable
02-24-2007

Rated 0 
suicidal
or depression

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naiveunsatisfiable
02-24-2007

Rated 0 
suicidal
or depression

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TransparentSunChild
04-25-2007

Rated 0 
72telecaster, i actually was just reading in detail about his death and when i heard that it took aprox. 68 somethin minutes for him to pass i had to come on here and see if anyone else caught it..its kind of like that sublime song poolshark (brad forsaw his death)

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looking2hard
07-17-2007

Rated 0 
I don't think anyone really considered the first line "Everything is gone but the echo of the burst of a shell". Might be significant? Obvious interpretation says suicide but its strange how it comes before he says he is "stuck here waiting for a passing feeling" ...?

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Pardonme123
09-06-2007

Rated 0 
Suicide.

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thoraxcorp3
09-22-2007

Rated 0 
I always heard it as:
"Still I sinned all the time"
and not
"Still I send all the time"
Sinned makes more sense to me.

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the scenic world
11-09-2007

Rated 0 
heroin

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mm7030
03-25-2008

Rated 0 
The guitar line at the end is one of my favorite parts of any song ever.

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tim009
04-03-2008

Rated 0 
It could be about recovery from either drugs or depression. The "burst of a shell" and "request for relief" are both military references. The metaphor for suffering is a soldier who has apparently been a part of building (or maybe rebuilding) and destroying a city.

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