Our Lady Peace: Thief Meaning

Song Released: 2000

Thief Lyrics

I don't want to understand this horror
There's a weight in your eyes I can't admit
Everybody ends up here in bottles
But the name tag's the last thing you wanted
As the world explodes we fall out of it
And we can't let go because this
Will...

1. Drewstar

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   Mar 17th 2019 !⃝

   Like others have stated, it has to do with the suffering of a friend with brain cancer or dementia or a disese that causes memory loss and eventual death.
   
   Theif is basically a sweet song that trys to put the fears into perspective of a person who is seeing there friend or family member dying from the disese.
   
   Keywords are on how the story is explained in the song,
   
   "Nametage's last thing you wanted" sort of like a mental health care facility where they tend to lable patients in order for them to remember names.
   
   "House built out in space" a sad example of the eventual near death of the person who will evenutally forget everything and might revert back to a childlike state refering to spaceships and space travel or something, or it could even refer to heaven.
   
   It's a hardwrenching song, but it's also a surprisingly postive one. It basically tells you to cherish these moments and make them postive in the face of such a sad end, because at the end of the day everyone needs to be there for a person dying of memory loss.
2. anonymous

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   Dec 12th 2011 !⃝

   i know its what the first person and last person said.
   
   its about a young girl dying of brain cancer who parents or parent is a friend of the lead singer. after the song ends there is a little girl singing at the end.
   
   "little by little everyday my true love is changing me, changing me....."
   
   but i also think its for all kids that have or will have a disease that has no cure.
3. anonymous

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   Feb 9th 2011 !⃝

   I heard somewhere that they wrote this for a young girl who was dying from brain cancer. And by "name-tags" I believe they mean the tags they tie on corpses toes and fingers after the person passes away.
4. anonymous

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   May 4th 2007 !⃝

   I don't know what Rayne's experience was, but my recent experience with losing my father who had Alzheimer's and ended up in the hospital for a month due to a stroke before he died...well every word of this song speaks to me.
   
   The thief could very easily be Alzheimer's. It does play the part of a thief in a person's brain. My father was very religious, and I'm more recently becoming less religious, so he spoke of his mansion in Heaven, and I didn't want to hear anything about Jesus. (this coming from the "house built out in space" and "I don't wanna hear who walked on water" parts) Every word in this song applied to the situation I was in with my Dad, so I feel this song could be about a parent or other relative that Rayne may have been going through something similar with. The name tag could have been the hospital tags that they put on patients. I know my Dad never wanted to be in the shape he was in and was actually hoping to die before things got worse.
5. anonymous

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   May 8th 2004 !⃝

   It's about a girl dying of brain cancer: "...thief that lives inside of your head" and how Raine feels about the girl and stuff... it's actually very deep... there's a line that goes, "everybody ends up here in bottles / but the name-tags the last thing you wanted"... this is kinda like when people lost at sea send messages in bottles, it's almost a distress signal... if you get what I mean... and you're ashamed of yourself, you don't want a name-tag because ashamed of yourself.

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