Lyrics for Holding On as interpreted by EagleSword

Holding On Lyrics
I thought the future held
a perfect place for us
That together we would learn to be
the best that we could be
In my naivity I ran
I fell and lost my way
Somehow I always end up falling over me

And one day
I woke to find
The future had no place
for me
I was unwanted in a world
that with my hands I helped build
Where once was honesty and pride
I now stand broken and alone
Just a shadow
of what I was ment to be

They say that "Time will heal"
"The truth shall set us free"
Well that depends
on what it is
that you choose to believe
In this prison made of lies
We see what it is we want to see
And find comfort in this
broken hall of dreams

Does anybody feel
the way I do?
Is there anybody out there?
Are you hearing me?

I believe in you
Will you believe in me?
Or am I alone
in this hall of dreams?

I believe in you
You believe in me
But I have no trust
in anything
Somehow I'm always
always falling over me

Somehow I'm always
I'm always falling over me

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  • 24 Comments
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rynlee83
04-19-2002

Rated 0 
This is the most amazing song I have ever heard. When I first heard it I cried. It is so intense and emotional. The chorus- the way he is crying out into the void - touches me in a way i have never experienced. I have listened to it hundreds of times and i will never stop loving it.

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Curator
05-07-2002

Rated 0 
As a long-standing VNV fan, the new release did not disappoint; specifically with regards to this song. Roland has mastered the art of combining soundtrack-style strings and piano riffs with dark, brooding synthesizers. In the end, this song is another added to the archive of my favourite pieces... such a shame works of this quality are so few these days...

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SunCrushr
05-30-2002

Rated 0 
I agree with Curator and rynlee83 on this song. It made me cry. It is so wrought with emotional quality that you don't see in the box-it-n-ship-it music from most "artists" today. I love it. Hey Curator, his name is Ronan, not Roland, just FYI. Keep up the wonderful posts people, this is an awesome web site!

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Curator
06-06-2002

Rated 0 
DOH! Thx for the reminder SunCrushr! I've been on the keys too much lately... if that's possible. :) Cheers.

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Black_halo_999
08-13-2002

Rated 0 
this song is so sad :( I'm listing to it now......... It brings tears to my eyes!

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GothicBlade
09-22-2002

Rated 0 
Yup, it makes me cry too. The chorus... the second verse..

And one day
I woke to find
The future had no place for me
I was unwanted in a world
that with my hands I helped build
Where once was honesty and pride
I now stand broken and alone
Just a shadow of what I was meant to be

Gets me every time. So does airships, but on a different level. Funny thing is... I heard the song many times, but I didnt truly listen to it until I bought Futureperfect

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morphed
10-05-2002

Rated 0 
one word for this song,,, wow ! as funny as it sounds, when i first heard this song i was at the lowest point of my life, i will say this song probley saved my life.

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TinyBlackRose
04-09-2003

Rated 0 
This song has actually gave me hope in my time of need. When Ronan sings 'I believe in you. will you believe in me?' i didnt feel like i was alone in this world any longer. i felt like there was actually at least one other person who was going thro everything that i am. Ronan's lyrics have helped me so much through out the past couple of years...even saved my life multiple times, im sure. almost all of their songs just touch my heart and go along w/ my life in some way. their songs are so meaningful and deep.

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sulwyn
10-16-2004

Rated 0 
Holding On reminds me of when I broke up with someone... it's like he's calling out to me when I hear this song. Bittersweet for me.

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g_eye_joe
03-24-2005

Rated 0 
yeah, it's a bit of a tear-jerker for me too. Probably th emost powerful thing VNV have ever done.
the first time "does anybody feel the way i do?" is sang....words do not describe!
sensational stuff

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iChune
07-24-2005

Rated 0 
This song makes me sadder than I ever could possibly feel for a song; on emotional days I cry.

It's also very personal for me.
It makes me think of my feelings of being unwanted in the world, that even though I contribute quite a bit to the people and things around me I get no recognition and get nothing in return for my efforts.

It makes one feel very empty inside,
but listening to this song gives me this feeling of knowing that there are other people out there who feel the way I do ("does anybody feel....?").

As an artist, I draw some pretty deep stuff and try to reach out to people in ways that normal discussion can't
( even more so since about a year or two ago, when I got into VNV ), but the most I get from the majority of the people I come in contact with is, "Nice drawings," or maybe a couple bucks for a print if I'm lucky.

On that note, I'm relatively mature for my age (14), and nobody seems to understand that or recognise it at all;
I have this almost itching feeling that makes me want to cry sometimes that the adults I try to have serious conversation with don't take me seriously, or that they lower the quality of their discussion topics to fit the normal fourteen year old conversation content.

On the same level, I feel this urge to strangle most of my peers, what with their incredibly short attention spans and constant talk about sex and boys and stupid shit I take no interest in talking about openly
(I may think of such juvenile things once in a blue moon, but never EVER talk amoungst my peers about sugh things).

See what a mess I've made of this area of the site, what with my monster of a reply? That's how this song makes me feel. I feel very strongly towards this song and how it makes me feel and the way it makes me think.

Sorry for wasting everyone's time with my unnecessarily long post. (apologies)

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MrMarouka
12-29-2005

Rated 0 
This song calls out to anyone who has worked to make the world a better place, only to find that the future they desired had manifested into something contrary to their hopes and dreams.

Remember growing up? (Depending on how old you are now). Remember the glorious future that was to be? Every generation claims that they will change the world for the better but always come up short in the end.

Society's standards--that is the traits that seem to be respected in people these days; Selfishness, greed, blind ambition, money lust, overshadow everything I was brought up to hope for. Whatever happened to peace, enlightenment, honesty, pride, humanity and understanding? I guess I'm lost in my own "broken hall of dreams."

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Kitsune_Tokkan
01-26-2006

Rated 0 
when I hear this song, it reminds me up growing up. until I got to high school, this is how I felt... alone... I was finally losing my childhood bliss in everything and was realizing I was so much different then everyone else... be it me being gay, or other things...

And with all the people I have now I look upon this song and smile... and cry in happiness of what I have now.

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[acid]
03-01-2006

Rated 0 
I believe this song talks about how after death this person craves what he has left all he loved behind, pretty simple really he's in the astral plane.

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Driadon
03-29-2006

Rated 0 
There are only 2 songs that have ever brought me to tears: Beloved and this song. Anyway i feel this song is about how we achieve such goals in the future, but never seem to change the way we see the world. After thousands upon thousands of years we have fought eachother never realizing that it can stop, but we never do. The dreams we should have achieved and standards that should have changed have not. It all remain the same and it dissapoints us all.

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lastrites
05-25-2006

Rated 0 
I think the meaning of "Holding On" is connected with the theme of futureperfect, in which our past hopes and dreams of a better world have not come to fruition.

"
And one day
I woke to find
The future had no place
for me
I was unwanted in a world
that with my hands I helped build
Where once was honesty and pride
I now stand broken and alone
Just a shadow
of what I was meant to be"

To me this is a reflection on the past and a realization that the promised utopia of 20th century has not come about today. Those that built great the city structures and labored in factories, have lost their once important jobs, they have aged. Now they are unwanted, the pride they once felt has faded away with time. Essentially the people who contributed to the building of the "brave new world" have been discarded, because they are no longer necessary.

"In this prison made of lies
We see what it is we want to see
And find comfort in this
broken hall of dreams"

In the modern world, filled with twenty-four hour entertainment and mindless distractions, we no longer strive to build a better world. In the denial of the modern age, hope for a better world has long since faded. The narrator sees this new world as a prison because the hopes and dreams he once believed in, will never be realized.

If you interpret the song this way, in the context of the futureperfect theme. It makes sense to view the narrator as a person who is isolated from modern society. Someone who is so deeply lonely, he wants to cry out in the hope that someone will hear him and understand. More than anything he wants to heal his bitterness and wounded trust. He wants to believe in something again, to move on from the lost hope of the past.

"I believe in you
Will you believe in me?
Or am I alone
in this hall of dreams?

I think this song is so powerful because the lyrics communicate a moment of epiphany, in which the narrator must choose between giving up and reaching out. He chooses to reach out again, in hope that someone will believe in him too, so that his loneliness may end.

This is one of my favorite songs because its so sensitive and honest. What ever meaning is taken from it, the feeling of vulnerability is what makes "Holding On" so striking. It's so difficult to ask someone else to believe in you, to trust. I find that idea intensely emotional.

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MrMarouka
07-31-2006

Rated 0 
I'm with you 100%, lastrites.

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Narayan
03-07-2007

Rated 0 
omg!
i'm falling in love with this song

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HorsesMouth
04-04-2007

Rated 0 
VNV NATION "SONG MEANINGS" INSIDE
15 page interview with Ronan Harris.

http://dancemusic.about.com/od/artistshomepages/a/VnVNationInt.htm

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modul
04-19-2007

Rated 0 
Full ACK to you guys.
This song is just amazing. It's a masterpiece..
It's rare that a song can touch a soul in SUCH a way..... it's wonderful.
I like to sing along with songs I hear and like. It's impossible with this. Tears come from my eyes and my voice disappears when I try to sing..
The song reflects the truth of my soul in many ways.. it's unimaginable.. -> "Does anybody feel the way I do?"
When I read all these comments... it seems so. That's good.
--
"I now stand broken and alone
Just a shadow
of what I was ment to be"

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Panzerbane
05-14-2007

Rated 0 
Another great opportunity for a music video.

In this one I think of Ronan in a workers uniform and hard hat looking up at a skyscraper under construction from a deserted city street, the buildings falling in disrepair around him.

His hand opens up and he drops a pink slip to the ground as he walks into the building past Mark in a guard's uniform and rides a construction elevator to the top where he sits on the edge of a scafollding looking at the cityscape and a bleak sky around him

After the chorus he'd rise to his feet and step off of the edge, except he will begin to fall upwards towards the clouds, zooming in on his face, the wind rushing by as he continues with the second chorus.

The camera will pan out again as he emerges through the clouds to see the perspective has changed and he now appears to be falling towards the ground on a brighter, colorized paralell city scape before him and as the song comes to a close with him "always, always falling over me...." he comes softly to a landing on a new, bright paralell universe cityscape from the beginning of the song and he walks off into the sunset as the music fades.

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Cressie
02-21-2008

Rated 0 
I think everyone has felt this way before...

I know I have
This song comforts me so much. It's so emotional.

I totally agree with Modul. I attempt to sing along...and find it impossible,

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aprincessgonewrong
07-16-2008

Rated 0 
This song fits my life perfectly right now. Like how someone stated how you give so much to other people, but get no recognition. How that makes you feel alone and empty inside. This song has opened my eyes in knowing that I'm not alone. VNV Nation is absolutely amazing.

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Wessyface
07-27-2008

Rated 0 
this is how most people in the world feel.....this is how i felt when i didn't have vil in my life.

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