Never Let Me Go

This song seems to be about SURRENDER. Not giving up (an act of despair) but giving in (an act of embrace and devotion). This is about the pleasure of being overwhelmed, something akin to masochistic delight.

Ostensibly, the singer surrenders to the ocean, and lets it pull her to the bottom. All her concerns and prayers are as nothing any more because the all-encompassing sea reduces her to nothing.

But this is more metaphor, than reality, as the refrain "Never let me go," suggests that life continues after the surrender, and the willing victim desires to be overwhelmed forever. It's like the moment of orgasm, where you barely exist as a thinking person, and want to stay there forever.

It's the decision to surrender to a passion or desire, that others may question (branding you a sinner), but you don't care, and beg that desire to embrace you foreve, to NEVER LET YOU GO.

Has anyone read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro? I can't help but draw parallels.

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us."

To me, this song's about feeling so unwanted in life that she commits suicide by drowning.

And it's peaceful in the deep 'Cause either way you cannot breathe No need to pray, no need to speak Now I am under

She's finally finding some kind of peace from whatever she was going through, and no longer feeling the need to pray for release or speak to explain herself

Oh, and it's breaking over me A thousand miles out to the sea bed Found the place to rest my head

She's found the place she wants to be, far away from anyone else who might try to hurt her.

(Never let me go, never let me go Never let me go, never let me go)

This is her begging the ocean never to let her go, to keep her safe in oblivion and death and not just wash her up on a shore.

And the arms of the ocean are carrying me And all this devotion was rushing over me And the crushes are heaven for a sinner like me But the arms of the ocean deliver me

For me, this says that the ocean is pulling her in, devoted to her, which no-one ever was in her life. The crushes are heaven might mean that the ocean crushing her is like heaven because it's punishing her for what went wrong.

Though the pressure's hard to take It's the only way I can escape It seems a heavy choice to make But now I am under, oh

It's hard to go through with it, but it's the only way she can escape from the hell of her life. To others, it might seem like too heavy a choice, but she doesn't regret it.

And it's over and I'm going under But I'm not giving up I'm just giving in

I think that this means she's not giving up what she had, she's giving in to what she wants.

Oh, slipping underneath So cold and so sweet

I heard this as sleeping; showing the ocean as a bed, something comforting, as if dying's like a dream.

In the arms of the ocean, so sweet and so cold And all this devotion, well, I never knew at all And the questions I have for a sinner released As the arms of the ocean deliver me

She finally dies; she's been released from her sins, and the ocean's giving her all the devotion she never had.

In the booklet for Ceremonials, she talks about how when she was a kid and she would go swimming in pools, she used to swim to the bottom of the pool, and she felt almost like she could breathe. She also says that the idea of being overwhelmed by something, not just water, fascinates her. So, that is probably either what the song is about, or at least what inspired the imagery.

The way I interpret it is that this song and the video is something of a recreation of "The Little Mermaid" not the soft Disney version but of the first versions.

In the story, the little mermaid looks up to the world above her and falls in love with the prince. She eventually gets the sea witch to cast a spell on her to turn her human and walk on land to be with the prince. She is supposed to get the prince to fall in love with her, or else she will die. The prince never does and leaves her for someone else, and then the mermaid dies turning into sea foam.

In the music video, when the girl was walking out of the rink, she was dripping water, perhaps proving she has just had the spell cast on her. The ice rink may represent the land the prince lives in. While the two dance for a while and share an intimate moment, he eventually leaves her. She starts to turn into foam even when she was dancing with the prince, but it pours out after he leaves her.

The moral of that story is not to sacrifice everything you have for one person who may not even like you back.

Actually, the song is about Virginia Woolfe. She committed suicide by drowning herself. Florence wrote this song about how it must have felt like. The love story you see in the video is based on her last note to her husband: "What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that–everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been." -A part of Virginia Wolf's last note to her husband

The older lady in the video that is mopping and watches Florence, I would assume, is suppose to be Virginia. Beautiful song and I cry every time I hear. Such a sad tragedy.

This song blew me away the first time I heard it! Her best vocal effort yet in my opinion.

I think this song is almost perfectly parallel to the Titanic. That may or may not have been Florence's intention, but it's quite a beautiful coincidence.

My interpretation is someone who suffers from mental illness.

The video depicts Florence with thick, black water running down her face and overflowing, which symbolizes black bile to me. Melancholy was believed to arise from black bile in the old days. In the video, she lifts out it and is momentarily happy, dancing and laughing and the woman who has been mopping up the bile seems to have a moment of peace where she can stop (shot of the mop still). Perhaps the old woman symbolizes the devotion of those that try to help in vain to lift her from her depression. The video ends with her being swallowed up again by her depression....but never let her go....she'll be back. :)

I have this song on repeat, amazing.

I can't help but hear 'and the crushes are heaven, for a sinner like me', as in the crushing waves of the ocean? Could just be me!