Blinding

First, let's give credit where credit's due. The mark of a brilliant piece of music and particularly lyricist is their ability to relate something that was obviously intensely personal for them (can't you feel it?) and turn it into a sort of universal Rorschach (inkblot) test for the end listener, ultimately conveying more about YOU than HER. This explains the varied interpretations already here & yet to come.

"Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake"

For me, this harks back to countless esoteric traditions using the device of explaining our so-called waking world as nothing more than a daydream, a sleeping state of mind, unaware and just going on dreaming.

"No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber Until I realize that it was you who held me under"

None of the "fairy-tale" (kiss) or commonplace (gentle word) ways of awakening will suffice here; It's going to take a realization that you are being oppressed (held under) by YOU, your "self" (You who held me under).

"Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs"

This describes the physical shock wave caused by waking up mentally, spiritually to the truth of our reality. This could also be interpreted as a description of awakening Kundalini energy. It fits.

"No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone"

There's a couple of angles you could take here. In keeping with my previous theme, you could be affirming that the "sleeping"/unawakened populace are "dead" and you are no longer part of their shared dream. Death itself is undone and you are finally, truly ALIVE. You could also look at it as releasing our overbearing sense of attachment and realizing that dreaming of things that have come and gone is pointless. Death is just another sleep, just another link in the chain.

"No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden"

No more making a bunch of noise over things that once seemed hopelessly important, such as a lover (boy) or worldly aspirations. Or something/someone that's dead/gone (body in the garden), such as your former conceptions of yourself and the world at large. But we can't ignore the crow/body in the garden connection as representative of a scarecrow, something designed to frighten and keep away that's really nothing at all, a hollow personage only APPEARING to be real.

"No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world"

This world of dreams loses all of its fascinations once you've awoken to a new world of perception that is so much more vivid and real.

"And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack All around the world was waking, I never could go back 'Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn right open And finally it seemed that the spell was broken And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open"

Once this change begins to manifest, there are rumblings, flashing of light, shaking (again fitting with a release of Kundalini). The whole world is different now in your eyes. The projected fantasy that had walled you in rips open and you realize you'd been entranced, hypnotized by the things that seemed so real. Now you can, for the first time, really SEE.

"Snow White's stitching up the circuit boards"

Now the underpinnings, the circuitry of this sleeping beauty is being put back together by a seemingly contradictory and outdated method (stitching). This is a beautifully vivid juxtaposition, hinting that the high-tech machinery of us can be doctored, repaired, put back together with our own hands, effort and the simplest of means.

"Synapse slipping through the hidden door"

The synapse is where our nerve impulses (say, from external stimuli) cross over and are turned into our interpretation of the world via chemical neurotransmitters. Once this process of interpreting/understanding has "slipped through the hidden door" of realization, the way we see EVERYTHING changes. And it's so brilliant it's almost "Blinding."

Or maybe it's just a breakup song...

The first part to me just seems so obvious as to the fact she's dreaming, and suddenly shes woke up. she's come to realize something.

"No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden" -sounds to me she was calling out for a boy who wasn't really there to begin with. maybe she was chasing him but emotionally he was never really there.

"No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world" -just seems "wrong world" could just be representing something like a fantasy.

"And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack All around the world was waking, I never could go back Cos all the walls of dreaming, they were torn right open And finally it seemed that the spell was broken"

--she's no longer naieve.

"And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open"

--she's finally woken.

just my thoughts and what the song means to me.

I love this song, it's a lot more sombre and dark than most of her album but I think it's one of the more powerful songs.

To me it sounds like someone dealing with the death of someone really important to them, (the "body in the garden") and struggling to wake up afterwards.

When she says "no more dreaming of the dead as if death was undone" it's like her trying to tell herself to stop dreaming of him as if she could wake him up. She's in "love with the wrong world" because she's in love with the world where he is still alive and she's trying to get herself to let him go.

Snow white was the one that was put to sleep and people assumed she was dead, right? So she could be comparing herself to snow white and her brain to a circuitboard, sort of like she's stitching up her own story in her head so she won't have to face the fact that the guy is gone. Not sure about this one, this is just an idea. I also like the explanation that "snow white" actually means cocaine, and it's drugs that are messing with her brain as she tries to forget him, although that's a little darker.

"Synapse slipping through the hidden door" could be saying that she is unable to function properly now, and because the door is "hidden" she won't be able to find the ability to again.

There are really hundreds of interpretations that you could make. It's definitely one of her best songs.

This song is about being blinded by love and she describes the whole waking up process when you realise that the one you love has manipulated/betrayed/lied and kept you blinded by their 'love'. and No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love .. as in learning that you cannot have little fairy tell dreams of love which you were brought up with since childhood.. because they just dont exist: No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world. Its just a waking up to reality song physically and mentally. all the lyrics about death are because breaking up is a dying process. into a new rebirth.. or so i interpret this song as. most lyrically deep song on the album. AMAZING SHE IS!

This song can be described with one simple word.... disillusionment.

"snow white's stitching up the circuit boards": such a powerful, vivid line.. i imagine snow white up in a dark tower, kneeling in front of a marionette version of herself, trying to connect it with wires, trying to revive it.... or,

or, i imagine the person in front of a tank of embryonic fluid, and in it, is a clone of herself... "my eyes flew open" is the moment the "monster," the other version of herself finaly awakes.. i say "marionette" and "clone" because sounds like there are two voices in this song, extensions of the same person, just as the monster was an extension of frankenstein... neither dead nor alive, in this zombie-state...

I agree about it hardly sounding like a love song. If anything it sounds like someone trying to let go of false hopes and expectations/seeing how something really is. I think it can have a lot of meanings though. It has a lot of folklore/mythology/otherworldish references and metaphors doesn't it? No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber"" - Sleeping beauty. Calling like a crow? Snowwhite stitching up circuitboards? Synapse slipping through the hidden door?

What really struck me was "No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world". I think I know what she means, but it'd be hard to explain. Also, it could be it only means that to me, haha.

It sounds like she's trying to let go of a longing of non-existant things because it stops her in some way or another. It could be I'm completely off mark, and I probably am. But that's what it makes me think of - that feeling you sometimes get of being misplaced and wishing for something "more". It can make you pretty depressed and unproductive. Okay, that was my personal, probably incorrect take on this. :)

I think it's about a girl in a coma and she has to choose whether to come back or not. I also have a theory that someone betrayed her and sort of caused the accident that put her in a coma. "seems that i have been held in some dreaming state" shes in a coma "a tourist in the waking world never quite awake" shes still here but not really "no kiss no gentle word could wake me from this slumber" thats her being unwakeable "until i realize that it was you who put me under" thats her dream state realizing she's been betrayed "felt it in my fist in my feet in the hollows of my eyelids~shaking through my skull through my spine and all down my ribs" shes having spasms the way some people in comas do because she realized her love caused this/betrayed her then the chorus is about her realizing she's not really on earth anymore. "no more calling like a crow for a body in the garden" its her body she sees and shes screaming but no one can hear her. then the no more dreaming part is about her having to make her decision-stay or go,same with the 2nd verse "and i could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack~all around the world was waking I never could go back" the thunder/lightning is her sudden realization, and how she knew she could never fully be herself again, party cause of her love's betrayal "cause all the laws of dreaming they were torn right open~and finally seemed that the spell was open" she now knows shes not even on earth anymore now and shes refusing to move on(back to chorus no more dreaming like a girl part) "and all my bones began to shake my eyes flew open~and all my bones began to shake my eyes flew open" she gives herself one final push to go back but when she wakes up shes not in her body still "snow white's stitching up the circuitboards~somones slipping through the hidden door~snow whites stitching up your circuit board" im not sure about snow white but she could be an angel,gravedigger, or maybe personification of death?shes finishing up the girl's life and then the girl moves on

This is just an idea but I see the depression view too.

i think its synapse too it makes sense if you think of snow white as being cocaine messing up someones brain (circuit boards) thats what it always seems to be to me anyway

I absolutely adore this song, one of her very best and that is saying something! But I can't get over the way people won't cease labelling Florence's songs as love songs, this is in no way to me a love song or a song depicting a romantic relationship in any fashion. You'd want to be looking at it in the twisted light of a young demented emo girl to be able to distil an image of romance out of these words. I'm amazed that there aren't more interesting concepts being thrown out here, its all the same broken hearted message on repeat, what if there was more to song writing? This song and many more of hers could mean a million meaningful things if people would just care to look behind the predictable Love Song theme. This is a very angry song! An extremely emotional song, if Florence Welch has achieved anything in music it’s her ability to make music people can express themselves through. An amazing accomplishment against most other modern music artists and yet it’s the same old Love Song spiel people are grading it by! I'm Irish and there is a great feeling of resentment toward the church at the moment in Ireland. I feel that for so many questioning young people that this song sings exactly their thoughts toward the church and there until now blind allegiance to it. There is a particular moment for many when they leave the church when everything seems to have fallen into place and the sheer horror of what you have been conforming to confronts them head on. There is an overwhelming hatred that empowers your every thought and you really do feel it in your fists in your skull in your spine in your very bones. To me this song gives me that feeling unfailing every time I listen to it. Of coarse it probably wasn’t intended for this view, but that’s the beauty of a vague song, it can mean anything to anyone! Sure it can mean love but it defiantly shouldn’t always!