Lyric discussion by EdwardC 

I'm in agreement with llscience. Pompeii is used as a metaphor to describe somebody standing still, looking out as their life falls apart and swallows them whole. It seems to me that the narrator is somebody who has big dreams but becomes content working a regular job and living a regular life. One day they stop and look out at their life realizing that it's not what they had always dreamed about. They've been stuck in this monotonous, never-changing life that doesn't live up to what they'd hoped. And now in this realization, they start to lose that optimism that kept them going before of being something more. Quite genius really.

My interpretation is similar, but what I took from it was someone who couldn't get out of this downward spiral that they were in. The song mentions sins and vices a lot. And the song is telling the listener that you see your world collapsing around you, but if you close your eyes, this has been happening your whole life. Remember skipping your first class? Remember skipping class almost every other day? Remember failing the class? Remember saying you wouldn't skip anymore classes? Remember still skipping classes every year after? I think it's this endless cycle of "sins and vices"....

Oh yeah, the "rubble" is continuing the cycle, because they cleared it after the earthquakes, but then stayed for the eruption.

EdwardC, I completely agree with your explanation of a meaning to this song. But this song leaves me feeling like something has been unanswered. I was hoping to find the answer on songmeanings.com but it has yet to be discovered. You explain the never-changing life and the results from its realization but what then? what then?

(I created an account just to reply to this song meaning and your post)

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