Panic! At The Disco: Behind the Sea Meaning
Behind the Sea Lyrics
And breaks free of my wooden neck
Left to nod over sleeping waves
Like bobbing bait for bathing cod
Floating flocks of candled swans
Slowly drift across wax ponds
The men all played along to marching...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:"A daydream spills from my corked head
Breaks free of my wooden neck
Left to nod over sleeping waves"
To me this means that the person, well Ryan Ross who wrote these, had a day dream one day. He nodded off somewhere, hey maybe even on a boat, and as he fell asleep all his pent up thoughts were released like a cork on a wine or champagne bottle while his wooden neck probably means the stiff feeling you have when you're either looking up one way for a long time or trying to keep you head up while you're trying not to sleep.
"Like bobbing bait for bathing cod
Floating flocks of candled swans
Slowly drift across wax ponds"
Bobbing bait for bathing cod is a serious use of alliteration which is sort of a throwback to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" era Beatles music. You sort of imagine these swans, which are really swan-shaped candles, float and bob on a pond made of, again, candle wax. They probably are tempting the "bathing cod" like they're food but are much too big for the fish to take on. This could be literally about a girl he saw who was as flawless as a little candle figurine who sort of floated into his life but she was out of his league, tempting him to go after the impossible.
"The men all played along to marching drums
And boy, did they have fun behind the sea"
This could be a visual of the Panic! boys Brendon, Ryan, Jon and Spencer, all out on a boat (they could've had one to go out to sea for some serenity) and they all brought their instruments. In all honesty they probably all had a bit to drink so they loosened up a bit and all had a lot of fun just together doing what they love behind the shroud of the ocean where no one could find them.
"They sang, 'So our matching legs are marching clocks
And we're all too small to talk to God
Yes, we're all too smart to talk to God' "
All of the guys from Panic! are not especially religious, especially Ryan who is a proclaimed Atheist who just happened to go to a Catholic high school and had a very rough childhood. I think this sort of goes really deep showing Ryan sort of discovered his own mortality and that the more time they march away the closer they are to dying. So now there is the ever so deep slightly changing line, going from "small" to "smart". I think this is Ryan's way of saying that, when he was younger helping his alcoholic and rumored abusive father, going to a Catholic school where you're taught that God will always help, felt too small to reach out in any sort of prayer, distancing himself away from religion. That's why it changes to "smart", as an Atheist, Ryan believes that talking to a man in the sky is probably fruitless and isn't worth his time, this idea possibly shaped by his father's disease and parent's messy divorce.
"Toast the fine folks casting silver crumbs
To us from the dock.
Jinxed things ringing as they leak
Through tiny cracks in the boardwalk"
Toasting is normally a thing people with wealth and abundance do instead of those catching the crumbs. I would say this is a shout out to Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz, casting down a few scraps of his popularity and music stylings to the band. The jinxed ringing things leaked from tiny cracks in the boardwalk are probably rumors and even an inkling to the bands ultimate demise. There were tons of rumors that Ryan was a drug addict, a cheater, a womanizer (even though he's really only had four girlfriends), that he's in love with Brendon and is gay or bisexual, that he was mentally unstable or that he was tearing the band apart with his new style of lyrics and music being much more reflective and soft than "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out" was (even though songs like "Camisado" are incredibly personal and beautifully written) were all pretty big rumors even then are were leaked through unknown places throughout the internet.
"Scarecrow now it's time to hatch
Sprouting sons and ageless daughters."
The scarecrow could literally be an interpretation of coming of age; even Ryan's own coming of age where he felt like he sprouted himself as an adult, moving away from the identity he used to share with his entire family and moved into his own life. Ageless daughters could be him for the first time noticing girls and how he would think they'd stay the same age forever, the ones he liked or his little sisters never growing up because he was a protective older brother,
"Don't you know that
Those watermelon smiles just can't ripen underwater
Just can't ripen underwater"
This will, to anyone hearing them, bring back memories of biting into a watermelon on a hot summer day and holding up the now mostly green rind as a smile. This could mean that if a child is drowned in adulthood to quickly, like Ryan was continuously going in and out of ERs and ICUs to see his alcoholic father, made him grow up too fast and he can just remember the happy days he had making those smiley watermelon faces with maybe his mother and even a few of his friends, just being an innocent kid.
So that’s my overly extensive review of this song…I hope you enjoyed it (: -
2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:I think that this is a very Beatle-esque song, nicely written by Ryan, but I think most of this song was written based on some kind of trip, maybe acid or such? I definitely think that there are some alliteration and hidden meanings in this song that the band is trying to convey, but to annotate this song any more would be to ruin a great song. So, even 4 years later, lets just relax and enjoy this wonderful song about a daydream:)
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3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:First stanza: he discusses a daydream spilling from his corked he'd. I believe he's referring to a thought or idea that's poring out of his mind, breaking free of his stiff neck as he is half sleep half waken with the tides of the sea. I think at this point he begins to drift from reality as he watches the drops from his candle slip down into the pool of wax at the bottom. He describes these drops as swans possible depicting them gracefully sliding down the candle.
Second stanza: I believe he discuses people traveling through life by stating "the men all played along to marching drums." I believe that in using the word sea he's describing the natural yet indescribable pushes and pulls of life. I think in stating "and boy did they have fun behind the sea" He's talking about when they went behind those natural pushes and pulls, where natural laws didn't apply, life was more intertaining. The next part they have is more of an apiphany. stating something such as I see! so our matching paths in life are the reason for time, and either were too small to stand up for god, or too smart to believe in his exsistance.
Third stanza: Here they discuss how the richer more successful people give crumbs of their fortune to the poorer, which slips through the cracks. This could describe the working class in life. How they strive for the fortune, only to watch it slip through the cracks of their life for taxes and other payments. I believe the segment on hatching scarecrows discusses hatching fears umungst the people. The next part brings up watermelon smiles and kind of goes with this stanza so I kept it together. Its basically saying that true happiness and wealth doesn't just come from anything, sort of like the whole "money doesn't grow on trees" saying.
Fourth Stanza: this part discusses the waves of wood legs legs of wooden legs bit. However, I'm not exactly sure of the meaning of this. Perhaps they are discussing the "matching legs" of previous stanzas and the stiffness of the first stanza. Maybe the people grow weary and stiff as the waves push and pull them onward and they have no choice but to move forward.
Thanks for taking the time to read my interpretation! -
Does anyone else feel like he’s talking about society? To me when he says “the men all played along to marching drums, and boy did they have fun behind the sea. They all sang (hey!) so our matching legs are marching clocks” that seems like everyone is trying to fit in with society, because that’s what you do to be socially excepted. And then when the say “we’re all too small to talk to God, yeah we’re all too smart too talk to God” reminds me of how people act “because they don’t need God” or “God isn’t for them”. Idk that’s what I got from the song.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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Okay, this isn't exactly an interpretation, but with the lyrics "the men all played along to marching drums" reminds me of the "Nine In The Afternoon" music video. Didn't they march and play drums in that video? Was this on purpose?
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Let's all just admit that they must have just been on something while writing this song and it's just a happy and good song about absolutely nothing
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I do agree with the daydream theory, but does anyone else think he may have been high when he wrote this? I mean with the rumors of him doing coke and everything...
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I think its about the songwriters (Ryan Ross) telling of a day dream and his imagination of how hed like the world to be... its supposed to be whimsical and not make much sense at all... And hes talking about the men having fun and seeing things in a new way, and realized theyr all to small to talk to god... were all too smart to talk to god. Its supposed to be really whimsical and not make much sense at all... Maybe he drifted into a daydream and wrote it down...
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I think this song is about a perfect world that he created, but the men were to perfect or to imperfect. And that things aren't really perfect and in the end perfect things are destroyed.
(I might be wrong soooo)
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