What do you think This Could Be Love means?

Alkaline Trio: This Could Be Love Meaning

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Album cover for This Could Be Love album cover

This Could Be Love Lyrics

I've got a book of matches
I've got a can of kerosene
I've got some bad ideas involving you and me
I don't blame you for walking away
I touched myself had thoughts of flames
I shat the bed and laid there in it
Thinking of you wide awake for...

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  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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     Dec 14th 2005 !⃝

    This song is very macabre, in the style Alkaline Trio loves so much. It's basically about obsession, bitterness, and the hurt feelings that come out of the end of any relationship. Since this particular relationship was pretty twisted to begin with, basically the singer is saying, "Since you've already broken my heart and near driven me insane by what you've done, why don't you just come kill me and get it over with? I know that's what you obviously want to do, because you hate me." It's about a kind of wild and crazy love/hate relationship between two people which has come to a close but isn't really over. She "took me [him] hostage", holding him in the relationship, and made a lot of demands that he couldn't meet (maybe to be a better person, to do the things she wanted, etc.) and then when she saw he couldn't meet her expectations she "cut off... [his] fingers... one by one," in that she slowly and painfully cut off their relationship.

    You could also say the narrator is obsessed over/stalking her because of the whole line "I shat the bed and lay there in it, thinking of you, wide awake for days," but what this probably really means is that he feels like he screwed things up with this girl and now he can't get her off his mind.
    "love for fire" is a metaphor of sorts, because he loves this girl but somehow he always gets burned (and perhaps the same could be said of the girl, but we don't see her point of view)

  2. anonymous
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     Mar 9th 2021 !⃝

    I think this song is about pyromania, and/also a breakup. The love for fire, and the book of matches lyric contribute to pyromania. Thinking about someone could be either. He also touches himself when he thinks of fire, which shows this song is about pyromania.

  3. anonymous
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     May 6th 2013 !⃝

    This song is about how he loved her and was willing to do anything for her even let her kill him. And the four steps is him telling her how to get away with it

  4. anonymous
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     Jan 3rd 2012 !⃝

    A sign of a young serial killer is being sexually aroused by fire. Surprised nobody mentioned that.

  5. Digger
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     Aug 25th 2010 !⃝

    I wanted so badly to figure out what the singer is trying to say with this song because it is a creepy song with beautiful harmony. I love the irony of the two being together. Now for my interpretation.
    I think this is about a guy who did everything for a girl to try to please her and she did not appreciate it and dumped him. He says that this all could be fixed in the steps he lists. Fixing his current state of disgusting existence by the girl killing him. It seems like she wants to take and take from this guy and never give back. She is only happy and laughs after she takes the last thing he has to give her, his life. Man, this song meaning sucks...

  6. pleezedazpiss
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     Jan 23rd 2010 !⃝

    I think it's about trying to kick heroin, (shat the bed layed there in it wide awake for days) Heroin withdraws are like the stomach flu (swear it's not contagious) also the part about cutting off his fingers would mean that he would no longer be able to shoot up. When he says to slit his throat ect. he means to kill him would be the only way to stop him from using. The love for fire is based on his idea to burn the both of them alive because an when an addict has no drugs it's as though they are commiting suicide and since the person he's singing to has in a sense asked him to do the same, he has no got the idea to burn them both alive a metaphore for the flames of hell.

  7. brielle
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     Apr 29th 2007 !⃝

    I agree with the 2nd. person.

    kickass song

  8. anonymous
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     Nov 16th 2006 !⃝

    Suicide? That's stupid, not to sound like an ass though I probably just did...sorry, but I don't think its that.

  9. anonymous
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     Nov 14th 2006 !⃝

    I think this song is about someone thinking about suicide, but not because he's sad or such, just because he wants the girl he's obsessed about to feel guilty (I shat the bed and laid there in it
    thinking of you wide awake for days). He's kinda creepy, so the girl is afraid of him and doesn't want to have a relationship with him anymore- so ends running away (I don't blame you for walking away i'd do the same if I saw me). He states that the girl did what she wanted with him then threw him away (you took me hostage and made your demands I couldn't meet them so you cut off my fingers, one by one). So by commiting suicide, burning himself (i've got a book of matches I've got a can of kerosene), he wants her to feel bad about going away. He's not sad because she dumped him, he's angry about it.


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