Smoke Lyrics
Leaf by leaf and page by page
Throw this book away
All the sadness, all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding and tear the glue
And all the grief we never even
Knew we had it all along
Now it's smoke
[Verse 2]
The things we've written in it
Never really happened
All the things we've written in it
Never really happened
And all of the people come and gone
Never really lived
And all the people come have gone
No one to forgive
Smoke
[Chorus]
We will not write a new one
There will not be a new one
Another one, another one
Here's an evening dark with shame
(Throw it on the fire)
Here's a time I took the blame
(Throw it on the fire)
Here is a time we didn't speak
It seemed for years and years
And here's a secret
No one will ever know
The reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Smoke, smoke
[Chorus]
We will not write a new one
There will not be a new one
Another one, another one
[Verse 4]
Where do all the secrets live?
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Can stop and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not dead
Well, stop and smell the smoke
You keep on saying the past is not even past
And you keep saying
We are smoke
Smoke, smoke
About
Off of their sophomore album Whatever and Ever Amen, Ben Folds Five relates a tale of a relationship that met a messy end, with the narrator ridding himself of all the memories. The song tells of a metaphorical book being burned, so that the narrator never has to look back at the memories again.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
That came to me in the form of a letter [from] Anna Goodman. I gave her the lyric credit on that because really all I had to do was adjust a little bit and make it rhyme. But the letter was so much of a piece of art in itself. She’s been my friend since I was 5 years old, and she writes the best letters. She’s one of the best writers I know. She doesn’t write professionally, but that’s often the case.
Ben in an interview with People Magazine.
- 2.Fair
- 3.Brick
- 6.Kate
- 7.Smoke
- 8.Cigarette
- 11.Missing the War
- 12.Evaporated
- 13.Hidden Track
