Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave?
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?
But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt, suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything, take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath, every hour has come to this

One step closer

I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

One step closer
One step closer

I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more


Lyrics submitted by KingPhilip, edited by kathyshoes1986, eliza1

A Thousand Years Lyrics as written by Christina Perri David Hodges

Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

A Thousand Years song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

70 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +22
    General Comment

    This is beyond beautiful. I have never seen any of the Twilight films so any meaning regarding that is lost on me but this is the most incredible love song I have heard in so long. The chorus is so powerful...

    I have died everyday waiting for you Darling don't be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years I'll love you for a thousand more All along I believed I would find you Time has brought your heart to me I have loved you for a thousand years I'll love you for a thousand more

    That depth of feeling is incredible and so rare, I could listen to this song all day and still be amazed by it. Well done Christina and thank you for giving me the words to tell my soulmate how I feel.

    venderfanon October 20, 2011   Link
  • +17
    General Comment

    I don't know if this is "correct" but it's my interpretation of the song:

    Verse 1: She has loved this guy for awhile, but never told him. Her heart beats fast when she's around him, she has so much "colours' or the joys of living and being alive, that she wants to share with him, so many promises that she wants to make, but she's too afraid of "to fall" perhaps that he doesn't return her love, that she can't tell him. But he's standing all alone and she sees her opportunity. All her doubt goes away--she must tell him. She takes a step closer to him.

    The chorus is her confession that she loves him. She's died every day waiting for him--it's painful to always see him and want to tell him how she feels, but not be able to. She keeps waiting for him to make the first move, but he won't. She tells him not to be afraid--she doesn't want to scare him away--but she's loved him for a thousand years--it feels that way to her, at least--and will continue to love him for a thousand more.

    The second verse is back before she confessed, while she is still going toward him. Time stands still for a moment, a beautiful moment as she reaches him. She's going to be brave and tell him how she feels, she won't let fear or anything else take this away from her. Every breath, every hour she has spent waiting for him has come to this one moment. She takes one more step forward.

    Once more, her confession.

    I believe at this point he tells her that he loves her too, and she just wells up with emotion. All along she knew that she would "find" him, or that he would finally know how she felt. Time brought "heart" to her, meaning that her feelings grew and developed until she was ready to tell him. She repeats that she has loved him for a long time and will continue to love him.

    Every word uttered is one step closer to the happiness she has dreamed of.

    Like I said, my interpretation might be a bit of a stretch, but I'm kind of in this situation, so this is how I interpret it. Someday a beautiful moment might come when I will be one step closer.

    RosesAndRuffleson February 24, 2013   Link
  • +13
    Memory

    My current girlfriend just showed me the music video to this song.

    When I met her it was so natural, so easy, we had no problems getting close to each other. But when the time came to meet her family, her father and two brothers came out to meet me. I didn't even get to the house. They instantly disliked me because I'm a soldier and they know the sacrifices dating us entails, and don't want her going through it.

    She said she was at the time afraid of getting this close because her last relationship ended so badly, and the lyrics "but watching you stand alone, all of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow" reminds her of the day, in her words, "I watched you stand alone against 3 dudes who are bigger than you. The look on your face said you would die before you budged."

    Because I love her. While I may hate Twilight, it's still a beautiful song.

    Smittyon December 03, 2011   Link
  • +10
    My Interpretation

    This may be a little obscure, but I am wondering if perhaps, like most people, she has dreamed of the perfect person and has fallen in love with this dream. Fear has kept her from falling in love because of worries that no one will measure up to what she has always hoped for. She then sees the epitamy of her dream in life and although hesitant, she "falls in love at first sight" Although she has loved this person for a thousand years in her dreams. She takes it slowly at first but learns that this is the person for her and that she has no need to be hesitant as she will never find out unless she takes a leap of faith.

    Krystah1369on November 27, 2012   Link
  • +9
    My Opinion

    i don't see how a movie can ruin a song. lol. whether or not this song is in twilight, it's such a beautiful song <3

    anch0rsxon November 11, 2011   Link
  • +7
    My Interpretation

    Wedding Song.

    The first part ... "Watching you stand alone" ... your fiance is waiting at the alter. You look into their eyes and see their love radiating from their face. Suddenly nothing else matters but standing by their side.

    "One Step Closer" That feeling of joy and fear all rolled into one as you walk down that aisle toward your future. Tradition demands you walk slowly, but every step feels like an eternity and at this point it's taking everything you are not to run to them and fall into their arms.

    "I will not let anything take away what's standing in front of me" This is from the one who was waiting's perspective now. You are standing together now, holding hands. Time stands still. You're afraid, but you feel you've lived your whole life for this moment and you won't let that fear get in your way. You won't let anything keep you apart again.

    When two people fall so deeply in love that they want to spend their lives together, it really feels like they've always known each other, always been in love, and always will be.

    Such a beautiful song. This should definitely be added to the top 10 wedding songs of all time.

    Also, I have to say, even though I fully believe it is a wedding song, it really does work as a lullaby. My Mom always told me that after you have children, many love songs will suddenly feel like they were written especially for them, and she was so right.

    tearosemoonon February 15, 2012   Link
  • +7
    My Interpretation

    To me, having not seen any of the Twilight movies, I interpret this song as a mother/child story. The feeling you get just before your baby is born. None of my children are born yet or even conceived, but I know I love them. It feels as though I already know them. It does feel as though I have loved them for a thousand years, and when I finally get to meet them, I'll love them for a thousand more. The "one step closer", to me, means one step closer to meeting my future babies. I know this must sound crazy, but my desire to have children is deeper than most people's.

    BethGoth05on September 06, 2012   Link
  • +5
    General Comment

    Aside from the movie association, in real life this is likely about an experience known as the twin flames experience. Waiting and chasing because of the fear of feelings tied to the person directed to.

    Brittany bootson July 30, 2017   Link
  • +4
    General Comment

    I guess the lyrics of this song is about a girl who is falling in love with a man. But she have lots of qualms probably because of all the failure she went through. But then she realize that this man is different from the rest. And now they are about to be united for a lifetime, she will fight for him, for she waited for him...and she will love him infinitely.

    love888on April 15, 2012   Link
  • +4
    Memory

    Reminds me of my relationship.

    My relationship began online 9 years ago. He lived halfway across the world, and for many years, it was impossible for him to move here to be with me. We carried on an online romance for 6 years before he finally came here so we could be together. It's been three years since then, and today we live together and love each other more than ever.

    So, I can take almost all of this song literally. "I have died every day waiting for you." I waited, and waited, for six years to meet the love of my life, with a lot of judgment and disapproval from the people around me...it was incredibly difficult, but I knew what I wanted. There was no one else. Never anyone else, for either of us. Sounds hard to believe, I know, and I can't explain why other than that we just KNEW, somehow, that we were meant for each other. "All along, I believed I would find you." I did. He did, too. We always knew we would be together someday, whenever it was feasible.

    "Time has brought your heart to me." It really did. After all that waiting, the time was worth it. Every day, every month, every year. Worth everything for what I have now. Anyway, that's my sentiment take on this song. It's beautiful.

    Crimroseon March 03, 2013   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
Show Me a Little Shame
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
He certainly did earn that reputation.
Album art
Battle Royale
Word Alive, The
This song is def a twin to "Unfair" (a song she has been quoted as saying is about falling in love with someone who is already in a relationship) so it is presumably about the same person. Given the references to buying an apartment and not being able to see her love interest "after tonight," it's most likely that she's moving away and she'll "wait a day to break the bad news" (i.e. notifying him that she's leaving once she's already gone). And, of course, the fact that she sees in him a fellow "idealist" and "dreamer" (terms commonly given to people with the INFP personality on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)) portends that she'll always be left wondering if they would've been perfect together.
Album art
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines: "Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet" So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other: "I had all and then most of you" Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart "Some and now none of you" Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship. This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Album art
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Album art
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988. "'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it." "There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."