Pink Floyd: Coming Back to Life Meaning

Coming Back to Life Lyrics

Where were you when I was burned and broken

While the days slipped by from my window watching

And where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless

Because the things you say and the things you do surround me

While you were hanging...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Aug 8th 2012 !⃝

   It's about getting a new life, not only in terms of love, it could be anything. Motivation, happiness, long term goal achievement, inner peace, mental stability anything at all. It is about a person finding himself/herself once again after going through a bundle of tough times!

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Oct 9th 2017 !⃝

   This song to me sounds like a man with a broken heart moving on and starting a new life. "Where were you when I was burned and broken" He means his spouse was never their for him in his pain and struggle. "while the days slipped by from my window watching" He felt like he was missing out on life and what could have been. "Because the things you say and the things you do surround me"He is saying her actions and words overpowered and controlled him. "while you were hanging yourself on someone else's words, dying to believe in what you heard. I was staring straight into the shinning sun." She found someone else that told her what she wanted to hear and wanted to deny ever hurting the man that truly loved her. Now he let her go and found someone new that makes him feel loved and fulfilled.

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Nov 7th 2011 !⃝

   My interpretation is that it's about someone reflecting on a past loved one and saying you weren't there for me when I needed you. You were in love with someone else. Then the transition in the song is all about the individual moving on and allowing themselves to 'come back to life'. It's about someone overcoming their past and moving on towards a better future,but never really forgetting the one they loved.
4. anonymous

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   Dec 16th 2022 !⃝

   As a recovered alcoholic with many years of sobriety this song touches my soul. His meaning can be anything, but as someone who was burned and broken, it perfectly describes an addicts hopelessness, pain, isolation and suffering. For me this song will always be about recovery and serves as a reminder of the hell I lived through. So grateful for the process that brought me back to life.
5. anonymous

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   Jul 16th 2022 !⃝

   My interpretation of this song is of someone that has fallen into a deep depression along their path. The lyric "Where were you when I was burned and broken" Impressed me as to, where was I when I allowed myself to feel broken with life at the time. Basically, where were you is, me or yourself allowing despair to enter into one's life.
6. anonymous

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   Sep 2nd 2021 !⃝

   He is an alcoholic. As always happens, nobody understands the desperate situation of somebody trying to get out from hell. Where were you?. Instead of helping, because they do not know the real nature of the problem, they just walk away.
   It’s only trough self determination, courage, and spirituality that he overcame the problem and found the renaissance of a new life.
7. anonymous

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   Jul 17th 2021 !⃝

   It’s thoughts to oneself as they recover from something devastating that took them out for years or more. Now they are breaking free of whatever held them down
8. anonymous

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   Jan 28th 2020 !⃝

   About a mans problems with alcahol having no help then slowly passed away.
9. anonymous

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   Jun 7th 2019 !⃝

   It's about his first wife, Ginger, getting into Joel Osteen...just a parting of the ways.
10. anonymous

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    Oct 3rd 2018 !⃝

    It is about being born again. People get born again when GOD calls them.

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

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    Feb 24th 2018 !⃝

    For the guy who recently made a comment, great to hear you are starting over and putting the past behind. Hope your health is better and you are doing well. It seems you are still in love with the woman you love the most, hope you guys get back together. Wishing you all the best. God Bless Mr.
    - Incognito
12. anonymous

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    Feb 24th 2018 !⃝

    To me this song a about a man going through a tough time in his life and the woman he loves the most is not there for him because she is listening to someone else's words trying to believe what the other person says. Walking away from who she really loves, so this man start over and puts the past behind after almost dying and coming back to life,,,, my life!!!!
13. anonymous

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    Feb 4th 2018 !⃝

    For me it seems to be abiut suicide . The deep depression, and noone caring. Life foing on as I stand and stare out the window. The Sun.. is God. Going to the Sun..
14. anonymous

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    Nov 7th 2017 !⃝

    I relate this song to my husband he had an accident and was tetraplegic and ventilated he couldn't move an inch and lay in a hospital room for almost 2 years before he got home I had to fight to get him home I see this song in relation to people whom he thought were friends but they never visited him he died after only being home for 4 weeks I think it was written by gilmour with sid barrett in mind he had mental health issues but it can mean many different things to different people's situations
15. anonymous

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    Nov 3rd 2017 !⃝

    It can be about want you want it to be...for me it helped me get through the most difficult part of my life over several years of Depression and anxiety with the lyrics being very relevant to my situation at that time together with the total lack of support and understanding of close family which remains years later hence the track remains very powerful for me.
16. anonymous

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    Sep 14th 2017 !⃝

    It has to be clearly about lost love... Lost coz of betrayal by the opposite person while he is still in love..
17. anonymous

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    Aug 11th 2017 !⃝

    Funny nobody sees that like a left behind message before having commited suicide.
    
    He is saying to one person he used to trust that he didnt get the support he would have been expected, and that led him to fall deeper into darkness.
    
    Looking through a window to the falling rain "dark and slow", the time lasping, long days, helpless, hurt: all that feelings are describing a deep depression.
    "lost in thought"
    "lost in time"
    
    The shining sun is the "idea", the "solution": the end of the tunnel, the irresistible escape, the light, calling him everyday more and more, like a planted seed: once depressed person starts thinking about suicide, the idea grows slowly and only people interefering can stop the plant to grow, the final change to come.
    
    The silences he refers to are the absence of this person, the un-answered calls, the support he did not get. This slowly became an obsession "I took an heavenly ride through our slience".
    Again, lost in though, over-interpretation those silences, thinking in loop.
    
    And then, he knows, he knew, that the time has come for KILLING the past and coming back to life. Starting again, on the other side.
    The waiting had begun.
    All this referes to the next and last step to change this life to go... well, coming back to life in a hope to be born again in a better life.
    
    Depression is an heavy thing and some people want just to start again, start from scratch, anything but escaping their own pain and useless life.
    
    Quite dark song for me.
18. anonymous

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    Nov 16th 2016 !⃝

    A person's transformation who may have become a ''born again'' Christian in the experience, after a mental breakdown he might have endured to become one with. A change that is relevant today to experience ''coming back to life'' as when someone for a long time has been believing and waiting on ''the right'' side of God, according to His will and the person's faith and beliefs that might've endured the setbacks of living in a secular society, left only to finally stare straight into the shinning sun, broken and helpless, fragile and weak. All the while being pushed further away from God by ''the leftist ideology'' that squeezed him towards the middle to paralyze and then to pull him apart that became in need to go to ''the far right''. Now caught in between the extremes that affected his loved one that pulled away from him when he needed her the most in mind and body, but left alone with hope for ''coming back to life, which he did slowly to be in Christ consciousness now to celebrate life again with ''The Right'' liberal.

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