In a literal sense, the words of this song portray the female singer being consoled by the male singer after she has apparently had an encounter with ghosts. (Fittingly, as the opening track to a CD called “Five Ghosts” that often invokes imagery of the dead) Personally I imagine it being a foggy dusk, in a small rural town. The male character is eagerly trying to piece together what it is that she saw in her encounter, but she is seemingly shaken — if you’ll notice, she is not actually answering his questions, but speaking out to seemingly no one, as if still in shocked daze. She describes the ghosts as being visions of children she once knew, with “light” in their eyes, and she details the feelings of death and despair that came over her. The chorus talks about “they” (ghosts, or “dead hearts”) being out there, but insists most people fail to recognize it or believe in them.
A few of the lines make it clear that this ‘supernatural experience’ is actually a metaphor. “It’s hard to know that you still care,” “Now they’re all dead hearts to you,” etc. The dead hearts represent the narrator having a stirring reflection about the meaningful people and things from her past that she has realized are now “dead” to her. Various people in whose eyes she once saw “light,” the people who once had vibrant, meaningful presences in her life — they have faded over years into distant memories. The song’s meaning is effectively that there are many people you lose and places you leave over a lifetime — sometimes purposefully, sometimes drifting away slowly or unintentionally — and that those dead hearts and forever lost feelings haunt everyone should they choose to realize and reflect upon them.
In a literal sense, the words of this song portray the female singer being consoled by the male singer after she has apparently had an encounter with ghosts. (Fittingly, as the opening track to a CD called “Five Ghosts” that often invokes imagery of the dead) Personally I imagine it being a foggy dusk, in a small rural town. The male character is eagerly trying to piece together what it is that she saw in her encounter, but she is seemingly shaken — if you’ll notice, she is not actually answering his questions, but speaking out to seemingly no one, as if still in shocked daze. She describes the ghosts as being visions of children she once knew, with “light” in their eyes, and she details the feelings of death and despair that came over her. The chorus talks about “they” (ghosts, or “dead hearts”) being out there, but insists most people fail to recognize it or believe in them.
A few of the lines make it clear that this ‘supernatural experience’ is actually a metaphor. “It’s hard to know that you still care,” “Now they’re all dead hearts to you,” etc. The dead hearts represent the narrator having a stirring reflection about the meaningful people and things from her past that she has realized are now “dead” to her. Various people in whose eyes she once saw “light,” the people who once had vibrant, meaningful presences in her life — they have faded over years into distant memories. The song’s meaning is effectively that there are many people you lose and places you leave over a lifetime — sometimes purposefully, sometimes drifting away slowly or unintentionally — and that those dead hearts and forever lost feelings haunt everyone should they choose to realize and reflect upon them.
There's funny symbols in the text, is anyone else facing this problem?
There's funny symbols in the text, is anyone else facing this problem?