Owl City: Fireflies Meaning
Song Released: 2009
Fireflies Lyrics
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep
Cause they fill the open air,
And leave teardrops everywhere,you'd think me rude but I would just stand, and stare
I'd like to make myself...
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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In my opinion since Adam has autism the song to me is about the world thinking he is weird but he is the one who thinks they are weird with the way he thinks different. I know this because I am a mild aspie.
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i think that this song is just about a dreamworld. everything that is going on is happening in his dream,and perhaps he prefers dreaming than actually living life "it's hard to say that id rather stay awake when im asleep". he is unhappy with reality, and wishes he could stay in this dream forever, and never wake up.
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You're all fools. This song isn't a political statement. Or a religious one either. Yes there is some childhood nostalgia and magic portrayed. But I believe that this isn't even metaphorical dreams we are talking about. I knew what his song was about the moment I heard it: Growing up and living with insomnia. The fireflies he counts I believe are those glow in the dark star stickers that most kids like me grew up with in the 90's. I weep everytime I hear this song because I myself have experienced "getting tired of counting sheep" and being exhausted yet still "too tired to sleep". The "I like to make myself believe that planet earth spins slowly" line is a metiphore of his mind and thoughts spinning too fast as he tries to convince them to slow down long enough for him to finally sleep. The toys and things in the room moving and blinking faster and faster also illustrate this. He is also experiencing some fascination and possibly mild hallucinations due to his insomnia too. That's why as a child experiencing this can be both exciting and scary or frustrating. There is a conflict inside that you feel that this one foot in reality and one foot in the dream world. Are very interesting but also too exhausting too stay in forever. As someone who is creative it can be excellent fodder for artistic inspiration and can (and usually is) what is used for your craft whatever it may be (painting, poetry, lyrics to a song....) he also mentions "leave my door open a crack because I feel like such an insomniac" while the chorus sings "please take me away from here". "Here" being the in between world of not asleep but dreaming awake. Its a song and video that is him as a child fascinated as well as devastated by his newfound discovery of his insomnia. The "I keep some in a jar" bit is him taking his awake dreams into his sleep world and dreaming them there instead. People who have very severe insomnia oftentimes also experience very vivid dreams. Which is why he mentions if his dreams get "real bizarre". And the disco ball hanging by a thread is his sanity because his imagination and creativity are running too rampant for him to handle.
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Adam Young is a devout Christian – we know that from his recording of “In Christ Alone”. One of the ways in which Christian artists who are in the secular music business hide their messages is to speak with the voice of someone whom they are not. In this case, it’s a Christian who is experiencing the challenge of being pulled into another world where the ethos of Christianity is replaced by an ethos that tries to appear attractive, but to the one who is a Christian, is not. Undoubtedly, this is autobiographical. He is the one struggling with the pull of the dreams and the fireflies who would have him believe the dream world they inhabit is real.
"You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep
'Cause they'd fill the open air
And leave tear drops everywhere
You'd think me rude
But I would just stand and stare"
Verse 1: I think the fireflies are the attractions of this world and the non-Christian friends he has in his world of fame as Adam Young, head of Owl City. Being “asleep” is a metaphor similar to Plato’s allegory – falling into “unawareness” of the truth. The fireflies refer to the people and attitudes that surround him in stardom, and try to convince him that they are the light – the truth – and it amazes him that these people think he would fall into the idea that this world of sleep has real value in life.
"I'd like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep
'Cause everything is never as it seems"
Chorus: He muses – as one who at times gets lost in dreams filled with fireflies that bring unhappiness – that it would be nice to believe you could sleep through life with the illusion of happiness, and believe that there was plenty of time to enjoy it while still being able to wake up. But he knows that isn't so, pointing out that its hard to explain to those in the dream that he rather be awake – which is his awareness of the true meaning of life in faith – rather than asleep enjoying the adulation and light show associated with his fame. And, even though its hard to explain this to the fireflies – and to the agents and executives making him a big star – he knows that things aren’t as they seem within the dream world they are creating for him.
"'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance
A foxtrot above my head
A sock hop beneath my bed
The disco ball is just hanging by a thread
(Thread, thread...)"
In verse 2 he says that these fireflies, now called more menacingly, “lightening bugs”, give him hugs and try to teach him how to enjoy their dream world of fame and fortune. They try to teach him the dance steps in every part of his life – so he can fit in to their sleeping world. But the disco ball, representing the core reality of their false world, is handing by a thread, perhaps even alluding to Jonathan Edwards image of sinners dangling from a spider web above a fire, precariously close to falling in “but for the grace of God”.
"Leave my door open just a crack
(Please take me away from here)
'Cause I feel like such an insomniac
(Please take me away from here)
Why do I tire of counting sheep?
(Please take me away from here)
When I'm far too tired to fall asleep
(Ha-ha)"
Bridge: His point is that its just takes too much effort to fit in, and he’s tired of trying. He doesn't want to lose touch with the real world - the awaking world, which is portrayed as a crack in the door. Being an insomniac is being a believer. And trying to fit into the world of fame is just exhausting for him, which is why he is too tired to fall asleep -- to tired of trying to fit in to fit in any more.
"To ten million fireflies
I'm weird 'cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell
(Said farewell)
But I'll know where several are
If my dreams get real bizarre
'Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar
(Jar, jar, jar...)"
So, he decides he is not going to play the game by living in the dreams that all the fireflies pretend are real. He says this to his fans -- the ten million fireflies. He is not going to give into the deceptions and dance of fame any more. In the end, despite the huge number of fans pulling him towards their world of false happiness, and even though he loved them and found it hard to pull away completely, he did pull away. Oh, he still enjoys the fans, but he keeps the allure of the fame, and what it asks of him, carefully contained. He holds the jar – it does not hold him. He can still enjoy their light, but they do not encompass him in their dream world any more. -
I think it's about his childhood. He is singing about sleep and how he would rather be awake, which suggests he would want to go back to his childhood and make time move slower. The words 'I like to make myself believe that Planet Earth turns slowly' means the says go slower. But the biggest hint that it is about being about his childhood are all of the toys around him from his childhood.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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The song is about astral projection.
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this song is about a man being pushed to insanity by the world due to a economical crash, he sees the day fly byand has to pay his bills, and he cant so he's imprisoned
so he starts talking to firefly's that can enter his cell, soon he talks to them and is driven to madness...
-fyi i ruin all songs -
I think this song is about how he tries to get his mind stuck on his fun, dreamlike, childhood life. What he wishes to have still happen, and what reminds him of what he wants. This song is like the rememberence of his childhood days. The fun he had as a kid, and what he wants; to either go back to it, or keep it there where it is. But it is obvious that he loves his childhood. I mean, come on people.
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Look up Astral projection fireflies music video on youtube it will put things in perspective https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SDuI204G5FY
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This song is referring to when he say I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep.hes talking about the meditative state you go into staying awake mentally while the physical body sleeps aka Astral projection. When he refers to the 10 million fireflies there is a point in meditation when you begin to Astral project and see the world trough the third eye the room your in will look as if it is sparkling or lit up with 10 million fireflies if you want to experience that you must meditate and go into the Astral body to see this for yourself it's quiet a beautiful site as everything seems to radiate pure energy. And the I'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly.hes wishing that planet earth wouldn't turn so quickly because when the sunrise comes that's the end of the Astral trip and your Astral body returs to the sleeping body and you wake up.
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It's about drugs, obviously.
THINK ABOUT IT.
"I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly."
WHO WOULD EVEN THINK THAT IF THEY WEREN'T ON DRUGS???
COMMON SENSE PEOPLE!!! -
I believe this song is much deeper, much lonelier and much more appreciative than what people seem to think:
I am an artist myself and with that in mind what I am hearing is a man who is very lonely in his own life, his reality, his waking world, but his career is like a dream, he gets on stage for a large audience who at some point inevitably put their lighters into the air and from his vantage point on the stage it looks like millions of fireflies.
Everywhere he goes these "fireflies" love him, they want to give him hugs, they want to share things with him, they want to be his friend, but at the end of every day he's going home to his lonely reality of not having ANYONE who REALLY knows him or cares about him the way that he wants to be cared for and it makes his career feel like that much more of a fantasy and one he does not want to wake up from - "It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep...".
If you listen to the song and keep in the mind the perspective of a lonely artist who finds comfort and appreciation in his connection to his fans, I think you'll find it all makes perfect sense... -
IT is about waking up from the dream world we live in (Matrix) The scene in the video is reminiscent of Close Encounters of the Third Kind where Barry (little boy) is invited to come play with the aliens (Fireflies)All the toys come alive and communicate.
Notice the "MAGIC" button on the keyboard. He is showing us that Magic exists and that ethereal beings are part of normal human existence.
"I'd like to make myself believe" This refers to the struggle to stop thinking the way society forces us to think.
"that planet earth turns slowly" Time is speeding up and we are forced to believe that by being "In the moment" we can slow down time and really see what reality is all about. A hologram.
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