James Blunt: Carry You Home Meaning
Song Released: 2008
Carry You Home Lyrics
Makes her body older than it really is.
She says it's high time she went away,
No one's got much to say in this town.
Trouble is the only way is down.
Down, down.
As strong as you were,...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:I remember watching an interview with James Blunt, some time ago now on UK TV explaining the song and its meaning. I seem to recall he said it was concerning a female US soldier he personally knew that died in Kosovo. As someone else has mentioned here. He became quite emotive about it when pressed and wouldn’t elaborate further….
So I feel it is by way of a gift to her and the soldiers loved ones…
It sounds to me as private a subject as is possible to sing about…
Almost a promise to a friend.
I have liked his music from that point to the present day after seeing this interview. -
2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:I know James himself said it's about the death of a soldier, and the video is also about this. But, since the first time I heard it, I have always seen it as the story of a girl dying from cancer. "Trouble" would be cancer, back again. "Makes her body older" because she gets weaker. "She says its high time she went away", she know she's going to die. The only way is down. And the whole chorus and everything else seems like it's someone watching that girl get weaker and die from that disease.
That's just the way I saw it. -
3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:I have read the interpretations above, and I know the writer had his own reasons to write this song.
As a singer (not a songwriter) who does many covers, this song stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it. I felt I was listening to a man mourning the last breaths of a loved one. It had a lot of meaning for me, as someone very close to me had recently died. I searched for the lyrics, and finally found them last week.
For me, the song is about death and love, and captures a tenderness and intimacy that I find quite unusual and compelling. It's a song that helps me express my own feelings about death and loss. It relates to my work as a chaplain, and also to my personal life. Death is so often a taboo topic, and the emotions expressed by Mr. Blunt are very real and immediate.
Whatever his meaning, I always think that art is meant to help us uncover our own meanings and work through our own experiences, in this case, grief. For this reason, I think that a song can be interpreted from many points of view.
One last thing that impresses me is the amount of emotion that Mr. Blunt can tap in his songs. I am riveted by his raw and courageous talent. -
You can also consider it two different issues. Two very good sections that they decided to make into one song. A woman having a really hard time...drugs? Cancer? Unemployment? And then the second section, the death (I could believe that it was be a pet that had to euthanized and brought home to be buried). And then they decide to do the video and they want to use the war theme. Better throw in the “Stars and Stripes” so it doesn’t hit home to the British public. Why am I being such a jerk? Because the song made me cry when I first heard it.
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Most of these can be true, but the comments about it being about a pet dying is the most ridiculous thing Ive ever heard.
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I think it can also be a girl who maybe had trouble at home at a young age, suffered abusive father or someone and she ran away young age, got to a life on the streets and the a dangerous lifestyle caught up in that, prostitute, drugs,abusive boyfriend, pimps trouble and she cannot break free from that life and finally she either overdoses, gets killed from an abuser, suicide or the streets killed her. :(
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There are a lot of thoughts when I hear this song. I do not know what it meant to James, but to me I think of my mother and her cancer was "trouble," and "makes her body older than it really is" The chorus hits me so hard, as I have the memory when I sat with my mother in the last moments of her life while she was taking her last breaths "I'm watching you breathing for the last time," Sitting holding her hand for the last time as she slowly took her last breath, "a song for your heart, but when it is quiet, I know what it means and ill carry you home" The moment she left me, and she is gone home and God takes her in heaven. I am always thinking of her
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I think it is whatever you want it to mean.that is why so many people have a different interpretation of this song..don't over analize.
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I personally think he sings about somone who had cancer.
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A view from someone who has heard the song but never seen the video: It struck me as an artful lament for the death of a beloved female pet. This is the song I wish I had sung to my cat while he was dying this past July.
"Trouble is her only friend and he's back again." A progressively degenerative illness has become the animal's primary reality; there's no quality of life left as illness "makes her body older than it really is."
"She says it's high time she went away, no one's got much to say in this town." A sick pet will tell its owner by its behavior and demeanor when it's time to go. The owner/narrator and the local vet know this, so there's not much room for discussion. The only way out of its misery is by being "put down", a phrase I wholeheartedly hate.
"As strong as you were, tender you go." All her life long the pet has been a companion, a teacher, maybe even a healer, but now all the narrator can do is grant her a peaceful death, staying beside her until her last breath and afterward, when her heart has gone quiet, "carry you home" to her grave.
"If she had wings she would fly away". My vet told me that in his last moments my cat would feel like he was flying upward on a cloud. "And another day God will give her some." This seems to imply that death is inevitable for all of us.
"And they were all born pretty in New York City tonight." Somewhere else in the world life goes on as new babies (puppies, kittens) are born even on the same day that other "someones"elsewhere in the world feel the narrator's grief for their own "little girls taken from the world". (As I write this, I'm watching my new kitten playing on my bed. He was born the same July day my Shamrock passed away.) -
Obviously the interpretation is dependent on whether or not you know the context. It does seem this song was written in reference to a friend who died serving. However, I agree with the other interpretation listed here that compares it to suicide. I have recently lost a family member to suicide and this song was chosen to be played at the funeral. Reading the lyrics gave me shivers because of how much they applied to our situation.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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His friend who he loved was possibly hit by a bullet and he watch her breathing until she died. And so he made a promise to her that he would stay beside her until she was home. He gave her last belongings to the people she chose to have them. James Blunt is an honourable man and a wonderful talent.
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My personal take on this song is different from other interpretation. I think he's telling the story of a girl's suicide. From personal experiences, I see how this relates to suicide. You live your life as strong as you can and eventually you break, it's inevitable. He's shining a light on it though. He's trying to express how she knew it was her time, although it still breaks his heart.
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I think the songs for The Holocaust, to remember the events, and the victims who died and loved.
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I KNOW that it was his friend, yes a female soldier. She Was dying and as he wept over her dying body he promised to take her back to New York to her Parents. and he did.
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And they were all born pretty in New York City tonight,
And someone's little girl was taken from the world tonight,
Under the Stars and Stripes." refers to the 9/11 that a girl tragically died in the incident and her body was covered by the US flag........NO
This is not about 9/11. It was way before 9/11......The person who does is a woman...A parents little girl is taken from teh world tonight....New Your is where the UN is and they supported the intervention in the Balklands. People who start these messes seldom pay a price. The person who said it was a woman is right and then they said it is two different women who live together is correct, I had to watch it side by side to see it was twow different women. So that person seems to have a better grip on what this is about. NAd it is true the military ony notifies immediate family not lovers of the same sex. so if James carried her home to where her heart was then that would explaine why he goes to the other woman...Two of the people who commented on here seem to have served on teh Military I would listen to their interpretation a little more I thing. Since they might have been in a situation like that or known someone who was. -
Growing up in a military community the meaning of two parts of the song are crystal clear. They become even clearer when you know that James Blunt was a Captain in the British Army and served in Kosovo.
The woman is the wife. When a married soldier dies in combat it tends to freeze her out of the community because for some reason everybody treats death as if it's contagious. They'll all be very sorry for her but there is an almost peristaltic reaction to expel her from her home, from the community and carry on as if nothing had happened, or could happen in the future.
The guy he's carrying home was one of his men who died in combat. Whilst the military would see to the processing of the body itself, it is not unheard of for soldiers to promise to deliver specific items to wives and loved ones when they get back home.
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