Winter Winds

I agree. It's about him being with someone just because he's lonely and she he wants to love her, but he doesn't think he should be. Maybe because he doesn't want to get hurt? The line "this time no" makes me think that he was hurt before and doesn't want to have to go through it again, so he says to himself "this time no" because he won't allow himself to love her for fear of being hurt.

I get where some people are coming from on the whole 'cheating on a significant other' feel this song gives them, but based directly off of the lyrics that can't be correct.

If you've ever been in the situation where you were single, and not because of your own personal choice, for a long time, this song really resonates. You're ashamed and disappointed in yourself, and feel like you're a failure for not being in a relationship. The winter is when I feel it most of all, because during the other seasons you meet people and have fun with new people and try out relationships that do or do not work out, but in the winter you're stuck with what you found or did not find, ad relationships formed in the summer crumble around then too. No one wants to bring someone home for Christmas they just met. So the winter is rough for singles waiting for valentine's day and other holidays to start trying the dating scene again. Hence the very first line.

When you're in the situation that you feel desperate just to love and be loved, you tend to snatch up the first chance to date you can, and it usually turns out poorly. Hence the next three lines where the narrator expresses doubt that the relationship is founded upon mutual love and respect versus that desperation.

The chorus really confirms this in that it's all a mind game when you're in a relationship because you don't want to be single but are with the wrong person. You form no meaningful connections with them (hence the heart saying no) but you want to be anything but single (so you try to convince yourself to love them and make it last, hence your head trying to force your heart to say yes).

The shame that sent the narrator off from the god he once loved is the shame of being alone. It doesn't make sense for shame about cheating to drive someone to cheat. The narrator felt alone and ashamed, and left Christianity after a crisis of faith. When you want things to go your way and your faith fails you, sometimes you feel alone enough in belief to leave your religion. That shame of being alone led the narrator to pursue an unhappy relationship.

The second stanza starting with 'washed and buried' is the narrator advising the girl to do what makes her happy, not implying it be with him.

The fourth stanza starting with "if your strife" is the narrator advising her not to be worried about being dissatisfied with the relationship, and that things will clear up for her and she'll find someone who values her as herself in a relationship, not so much someone desperate for a relationship in itself. It could also be interpreted as the narrator talking to himself, and that he should let things go, stop fretting (letting strife affect his sleep) and that after the winter passes and spring begins he'll find someone that he can let his heart love.

The whole pestilence, plague, and city clears lines are curious to me because no one mentions them. There is clearly a reference beyond connecting pestilence as a word to the plague that eats flesh, but I haven't encountered or have forgotten the literary reference comparing non-requited love to disease. It's probably middle ages-y like Chaucer or Boccaccio because the choice of the words pestilence and plague and describing good times as the city clearing evoke the bubonic plague, but that's not set in stone.

The 'cheating on a significant other" confusion is founded upon the word shame mostly. But someone cheating won't tell their heart to love their mistress or whatever, that's a function of the heart not receiving enough. Unless you interpret the chorus as the narrator encouraging their heart to love their SO and their heart failing to, which is a big stretch, the lyrics just don't fit that interpretation.

This song, TL;DR is about being single and then forcing a relationship to happen based on desire for a relationship, not the person, and then the aftermath and fallout of realizing what caused it. There's still a lot of room for interpretation on a personal basis, especially in the second and fourth stanzas though. This song is just as rich and powerful, both literary and emotional, as any other M

I love this song a lot.

It's about a guy who gets into a relationship because he doesn't want to be alone through the winter, but as much as he wants to he can't fall in love with the girl.

100% like ilovethekillers said... and right now I can totally relate to that song. My girlfriend with whom I have been together for a long time left me 3 months ago and just a couple of weeks later I met another girl that now is totally into me. I really like her a lot, but somehow my head still stops me to get as involved as I would like myself to be. The normal conflict in your mind, or as in the song, between head and heart. The head says, that to get over being hurt you need to find something else that makes you happy. But even when you find it, your heart is still hurt and doesn't allow itself to get into that stage where it is vulnerable again. You try to stay strong, even you know you might lose something good again because of it... does that make sense?

This song reminds me of one specific girl, an ex of mine. She was my first real love, it lasted a few years through high school before we went our separate ways. Then a few years later, we gave it another shot. Even though everything about the relationship made sense, my heart said no. The second attempt was a failure before it even really got started just because of the possibility of the same heart break as before.

A little sickly, but my favourite song on the album nonetheless.

The meaning seems a bit obvious to me, the 'winter' in this song is a metaphor for loneliness. 'Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?' The singer is now wondering if they were with this person due to feelings for them, or fear of being alone. The final verse is then the realisation that whilst loneliness and bad times can seem scary, ultimately they do end, and with this realisation it goes back into the chorus, of how he knows that he will never love this person, even though, as his head is telling him, it would probably be the best thing to do.

I think this is about finding that ideal person that you've always imagined to be "perfect" in your mind. They are everything you thought you'd look for in a person in your head, but in your heart you just don't feel for this person.

I think this song is about struggling with a divorce. The man wants to stay with his wife because he once loved her, but they are now in the winter of their relationship. He wishes to break things off cleanly and without letting the relationship turn sour and towards malice. Even though in his head he wants to give it another chance, his heart is telling him no because he wants to leave a legacy of a loving relationship to his children (So let the memories be good for those who stay), and he knows in his heart that their time together has come and gone and to stay in it too much longer would cause too much pain.

I always see this song as being about a guy who's recently gone through a nasty break-up that was at least partly his own fault and it's left him full of regret and broken his heart, and caused his to jump into a new relationship on the rebound, with someone who is in love with him, and who seems perfectly suited to him in theory. He's attracted to her physically and their personalities are compatible, so he tries to convince himself to keep working at it and eventually he'll fall in love with her to a depth that will erase his feelings for his ex. But no matter how much he wants it, his heart just isn't in it and the feelings don't come. So eventually he has to end the new relationship, telling the girl that although his leaving her may make her unhappy now, the sadness will pass and she'll find someone who can love her like she deserves - it just won't be him. Beautiful song, one of my favourites to listen to right now.

Just had this sent to me this morning as an mp4. Confusing... yet instantly recognisable. I empathise the age gap. 12 years and a whole other world away. But still agonisingly reachable... I'm the older one and it sucks. Feel like I'm leading them astray and feel v guilty for that. I should know better. Potential to fcuk young lives up and that's not good. V painful. Sometimes it's too much and you don't know whether you should let it go or not. You imagine it would be kinder, safer. Distance keeps it safe(ish)...

Your insides smile when they're around. When they're not, a piece of you dies. Then the part that died, rejuvenates when they come back to your realm. You think the worst when they disappear off the radar for whatever reason, it's over... you're not worthy... it'll never work... it's fantasy... then it gets real. And you want it so bad, you'd do time. Any sort of contact, even a glance, a word, an 'x', is enough to keep you breathing.

Then you don't know whether you're just being vain imagining they have the same yearning. Who'm I trying to kid... really. Not like they don't talk to a hundred and one other folk. Wtf makes me think I'm so special...

You know the truth but are unable to accept it. You live like you're driving with the handbrake stuck on...Because someday, somewhere, it might get released and realised... In your heart anyway. It defies logic.

I wonder what the reason is in the singer's heart that holds him back. I don't get that bit. Surely it's the head that overrules the heart when it comes to being sensible?