I just wanted to say that while the meaning of a song's lyrics are usually relatively, left up for the person to decide, unless the writer says "This is the meaning...." This song makes me cry every time I hear it because when this song comes on, I just can't control my feelings and everything I keep bottled up for the day comes out when the music starts playing.
For me, this song is all about depression. But, that's only because that is what I've dealt with since I was 12 years old. Since I was 18, I've felt this unexplainable emptiness inside of me. Like I've no purpose, no way to find out my purpose, that everything I do is pointless and without merit. I feel useless and destroyed, beaten down again and again. I feel unloved and completely alone, regardless of whether or not I scream at the top of my lungs everyone just pretends to not hear me.
When he talks of making quiet love, to me that is the love you make when one or both partners are so completely depressed and beaten they don't even find a connection through making love. It is purely physical, with the two looking away from each other because they know they just need to feel something good once in a while, even if it is only through sex.
I think the verse about demons is about suicide, or death. Telling all his troubles, his sadness and emptiness, to really go ahead and eat him alive. That he has suffered through it so much that he just doesn't care enough to fight it or try and stave it off. He just wants to quietly accept his death and embraces it, in fact he WANTS it to come. The hurt I hide just fuels the fires inside me that keep me on this self-destructive path of misery, loneliness, and, hopefully, death.
The song starts with a story about happiness (her bare feet laughing), and what should be a current pleasant experience (through the grass grown tall and brown), but the author sees only his past disappointments (I choose instead to dwell in my disasters). The Cadillac (that old and rusted Cadillac) represents the quality of a life that once was different, but is now empty and clouded (sinks into this field collecting rain), perhaps similar to the author’s life.
The song starts with a story about happiness (her bare feet laughing), and what should be a current pleasant experience (through the grass grown tall and brown), but the author sees only his past disappointments (I choose instead to dwell in my disasters). The Cadillac (that old and rusted Cadillac) represents the quality of a life that once was different, but is now empty and clouded (sinks into this field collecting rain), perhaps similar to the author’s life.
Regardless of the sunsets, new morning, flowers, and “quiet love we make,” the author asks if he will always feel disconnected (Will I always feel this way?) (Still somehow it is hard to let go of pain) (So empty, so estranged?).
Verse 3 signals his intent to change by confronting the emptiness (Well I looked my demons in the eye, Laid bare my chest said do your best destroy me). Note the present tense and confronting tone (I've been to hell and back). He has decided to not go there again (you kinda bore me).
The things that can kill a man are not having the courage to stand up to your demons (it's the hurt you hide). The use of the word “well” indicates the author’s personal answer to the emptiness, and how to “let go of his pain” (Well it's the hurt I hide that fuels the fires inside me).
I am not sure I agree with the interpretation of depression as much as an event that caused the pain. I have the feeling that the author was lied to (There's a lot of things I don't understand, Why so many people lie) and that may be the source of the pain.
While there is little support for this interpretation, the author may be speaking to the person that hurt him ( I have grown weary … If, I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me?). (Yes, and some already dead who walk beside you.) However, this runs contrary to the overall tone of the song and the “applauding rain,” verse that indicates someone new. The use of "rain" as representing the loss of a past quality life (Cadillac ... collecting rain) and the next use as encouraging the change (tapping of the rain ...applauding) indicates a potential change that is occurring.
I do see the song as somewhat redemptive in that the author has confronted the demons and found that they "fuel the fires inside him."
@NotThereYet , my sincerest apologies about your depression. I can only be truly sincere because I feel that exact way, and I have as long as I can remember. I thought that, if I ever met someone who I fell in love with, and they truly loved me, that emptiness inside me would disappear....but it didn't. Possibly the most depressing moment of my life because, in that moment, I realized this sadness and emptiness are....just a part of who I am. I wish I had an answer, a solution, a way to fix it, so I could share it. But...
@NotThereYet , my sincerest apologies about your depression. I can only be truly sincere because I feel that exact way, and I have as long as I can remember. I thought that, if I ever met someone who I fell in love with, and they truly loved me, that emptiness inside me would disappear....but it didn't. Possibly the most depressing moment of my life because, in that moment, I realized this sadness and emptiness are....just a part of who I am. I wish I had an answer, a solution, a way to fix it, so I could share it. But I don't.
I just wanted to say that while the meaning of a song's lyrics are usually relatively, left up for the person to decide, unless the writer says "This is the meaning...." This song makes me cry every time I hear it because when this song comes on, I just can't control my feelings and everything I keep bottled up for the day comes out when the music starts playing.
For me, this song is all about depression. But, that's only because that is what I've dealt with since I was 12 years old. Since I was 18, I've felt this unexplainable emptiness inside of me. Like I've no purpose, no way to find out my purpose, that everything I do is pointless and without merit. I feel useless and destroyed, beaten down again and again. I feel unloved and completely alone, regardless of whether or not I scream at the top of my lungs everyone just pretends to not hear me.
When he talks of making quiet love, to me that is the love you make when one or both partners are so completely depressed and beaten they don't even find a connection through making love. It is purely physical, with the two looking away from each other because they know they just need to feel something good once in a while, even if it is only through sex.
I think the verse about demons is about suicide, or death. Telling all his troubles, his sadness and emptiness, to really go ahead and eat him alive. That he has suffered through it so much that he just doesn't care enough to fight it or try and stave it off. He just wants to quietly accept his death and embraces it, in fact he WANTS it to come. The hurt I hide just fuels the fires inside me that keep me on this self-destructive path of misery, loneliness, and, hopefully, death.
The song starts with a story about happiness (her bare feet laughing), and what should be a current pleasant experience (through the grass grown tall and brown), but the author sees only his past disappointments (I choose instead to dwell in my disasters). The Cadillac (that old and rusted Cadillac) represents the quality of a life that once was different, but is now empty and clouded (sinks into this field collecting rain), perhaps similar to the author’s life.
The song starts with a story about happiness (her bare feet laughing), and what should be a current pleasant experience (through the grass grown tall and brown), but the author sees only his past disappointments (I choose instead to dwell in my disasters). The Cadillac (that old and rusted Cadillac) represents the quality of a life that once was different, but is now empty and clouded (sinks into this field collecting rain), perhaps similar to the author’s life.
Regardless of the sunsets, new morning, flowers, and “quiet love we make,” the author asks if he will always feel disconnected (Will I always feel this way?) (Still somehow it is hard to let go of pain) (So empty, so estranged?).
Verse 3 signals his intent to change by confronting the emptiness (Well I looked my demons in the eye, Laid bare my chest said do your best destroy me). Note the present tense and confronting tone (I've been to hell and back). He has decided to not go there again (you kinda bore me).
The things that can kill a man are not having the courage to stand up to your demons (it's the hurt you hide). The use of the word “well” indicates the author’s personal answer to the emptiness, and how to “let go of his pain” (Well it's the hurt I hide that fuels the fires inside me).
I am not sure I agree with the interpretation of depression as much as an event that caused the pain. I have the feeling that the author was lied to (There's a lot of things I don't understand, Why so many people lie) and that may be the source of the pain.
While there is little support for this interpretation, the author may be speaking to the person that hurt him ( I have grown weary … If, I spoke these words out loud would no one hear me?). (Yes, and some already dead who walk beside you.) However, this runs contrary to the overall tone of the song and the “applauding rain,” verse that indicates someone new. The use of "rain" as representing the loss of a past quality life (Cadillac ... collecting rain) and the next use as encouraging the change (tapping of the rain ...applauding) indicates a potential change that is occurring.
I do see the song as somewhat redemptive in that the author has confronted the demons and found that they "fuel the fires inside him."
@NotThereYet , my sincerest apologies about your depression. I can only be truly sincere because I feel that exact way, and I have as long as I can remember. I thought that, if I ever met someone who I fell in love with, and they truly loved me, that emptiness inside me would disappear....but it didn't. Possibly the most depressing moment of my life because, in that moment, I realized this sadness and emptiness are....just a part of who I am. I wish I had an answer, a solution, a way to fix it, so I could share it. But...
@NotThereYet , my sincerest apologies about your depression. I can only be truly sincere because I feel that exact way, and I have as long as I can remember. I thought that, if I ever met someone who I fell in love with, and they truly loved me, that emptiness inside me would disappear....but it didn't. Possibly the most depressing moment of my life because, in that moment, I realized this sadness and emptiness are....just a part of who I am. I wish I had an answer, a solution, a way to fix it, so I could share it. But I don't.