Lyric discussion by GregJ8787 

I am really interested to here how others interpret the lines of the last verse…

'Some will sell their dreams for small desires'

  • Some of the dreamers give in to the pressure to conform, and later in life they purchase a home in the suburbs. Could a home purchase be a small desire? Possibly.

'Or lose the race to rats'

  • Give in to the 9 to 5 lifestyle, making the killer commute, rushing here and there, and never marching to the beat of their own drum.

'Get caught in ticking traps'

  • This line has confounded me. The ticking part could infer a time limit the person is bound to. The trap, well just a guess… the purchase of the suburban home with a large mortgage obligation. The trap is the burden to pay it all back. The ticking part is the pressure is the make the monthly payment on time. I could be way off.

'And start to dream of somewhere To relax their restless flight '

  • this kinds of blows up my home debt obligation theory, because this could very well imply the initial thoughts about purchasing a suburban home.

'Somewhere out of a memory, Of lighted streets on quiet nights' The memory of the quiet suburb comes back to the person that drifted into the city.

This doesn’t all make sense, but I'd like to here what others think.

I have a little more clarity on these last two verses… The entire last two verses are related to the attraction of city life, including both the excitement that youths feel when going out on the town, and the humdrum way that adults have going to their jobs.

'Lit up like a firefly' - lit up store fronts, signs etcetera of a city at nighttime. Just as moths are attracted to lights at night, so too are youths seeking excitement, referenced by 'Just to feel the living night'.

@GregJ8787 I feel like this one is very obvious:

'Some will sell their dreams for small desires' : Husbands or wives that sacrifice a happy marriage for a one night stand of the legal or 'solicited' variety. Or A person who gives up a promising future for a drug addiction, one high at a time.

The part of the song after all is about people from the suburbs, a peaceful place going into the city and being overwhelmed by it

@GregJ8787 I think it means that while chasing your dreams in the city, you get caught up in a lot of bullshit and the pace is fast, and you begin to remember “the lighted streets on quiet nights” and long to be back in that environment again

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