Incubus: Pardon Me Meaning

Pardon Me Lyrics

A decade ago,
I never thought I would be,
at twenty-three, on the verge of
spontaneous combustion. -Woe-is-me.-
But I guess that it comes
with the territory,
An ominous landscape of
never-ending calamity.
I need you to hear,
I need...

1. anonymous

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   Sep 26th 2008 !⃝

   This song is pretty much about someone who is a misanthrope. He is just sick and tired of people and having deal with their stupidity, hypocrisy and all the other crap that goes with life. The going up in flames/exploding has a double meaning. 1) Taken literally going up in flames would be a pretty dramatic statement on how ticked of he is and 2) more metaphorically that he might just go off on someone and stop tolerating the world's crap.
2. nalnakee

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   May 1st 2008 !⃝

   Whoever said this song is about wishing to be a phoenix is a complete retard. One of the boys was in a bookshop one day and read in a magazine about a man who spontaneously combusted and was inspired to write a song about it. Im not sure if the song speaks from the point of view of the man in the magazine or what, but it is more than likely.
3. mmmmmmm

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   Jan 23rd 2008 !⃝

   For me the chorus "Pardon me while I burst into flames" is either a reference to breaking down, like from anxiety; or dissolving the ego and moving beyond people's "mindless games". So either being very aware and anxious of one's own ego interacting with an equally empty culture or the dissolution of the ego into higher things. Seems to be ego-death announced from either a hate or a love perspective; depends whether you think he's saying "it's people's mindless games" in an angry way or a matter of fact way. I consider it a bit of both and interpret it depending on my mood at the time.
4. anonymous

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   Jan 15th 2008 !⃝

   It's about a guy setting up on fire duh (or maybe a squirrel collecting acorns0_o)

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
5. coleb99

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   Dec 5th 2007 !⃝

   This song is also kind of about fear like Drive. He talks about how the world is messing with him and how he would like to start over. Hence "So pardon me while I burst
   into flames.
   I've had enough of the world
   and its people's mindless games.
   So pardon me while I burn
   and rise above the flame.
   Pardon me, pardon me...
   I'll never be the same!" he's saying the world is the flames and it has clogged his way of thinking. His way of looking at the world from a positive point of view. He's telling everyone (even himself and his negative way of thinking which is an entity in itself caused by the outside world) to pardon him while he rises above the flames and stops caring so much about the bullshit of the world because he knows that life is just a means to a new begginning and that the problems faced here really aren't problems at all, only situations to be dealt in the proper (positive) manner with when the time comes. Bottom line, the world is dragging his inner self down and turning him into a monster and he's trying to rise above it.
6. EvanOfRacine

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   Sep 30th 2007 !⃝

   I think it's about how the corporate world and the politics and everything government wise sucks and your tired of all the lies and bullshit that you would rather blow the fuck up in a big ball of fire

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
7. CameronLowery

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   Mar 14th 2007 !⃝

   This song is about how he can't take all of the bullshit that life has with it. He wishes everything would be simpler and that nothing would be twisted or complicated. He uses the spontaneous combustion as a metaphor for how he feels about life. He feels like if he takes all the shit much longer he will just "burst into flames", which is going crazy.
8. anonymous

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   Sep 19th 2006 !⃝

   I agree that it must be inspired by spontaneous human combustion. "spontaneous human combustion (shc) is the burning of a person's body without a readily apparent, identifiable external source of ignition. The combustion may result in simple burns and blisters to the skin, smoking, or a complete incineration of the body. The latter is the form most often 'recognized' as shc."
   
   it is not about a phoenix... He even mentions "not, two days ago I was having a look in a book /
   and I saw a picture of a guy fried up above his knees," which has nothing to do with a phoenix.
   
   He feels like this guy, wishing to escape the world by bursting into flames.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
9. anonymous

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   Sep 6th 2006 !⃝

   Maybe it's just me, but when I hear this song I always think of the buddhist monks that protested the war in vietnam(?) by setting themselves on fire.
10. anonymous

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    Jun 24th 2006 !⃝

    This song clearly refers to the phoenix, as the two above me have said. All it's saying is that Earth is too complicated, too judgemental, too hectic, and he wishes he could start over. Maybe it's not saying he would like to start over, but the world should start over, as a phoenix would (Noah's Ark-esque rebirth of the earth). It's saying that people need to get away from it all, or else it will pile up on you and you'll "burst into flames"
11. anonymous

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    Nov 23rd 2005 !⃝

    It's about spontaneous human combustion. And the desire to be able to escape from the world in such a manor. Saw a man fried up above his knee. Latly I've been thinking about combustion......blah blah blah, it makes sense. There is also the pot smoking parallel.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. sushifish

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    Oct 29th 2005 !⃝

    Not completely sure but this song kindof sounds like a suicidal person on the verge of killing themselves. I don't know, I'm kind of new at this stuff.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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