Snow Patrol: Open Your Eyes Meaning
Open Your Eyes Lyrics
And I won't waste a minute without you
My bones ache, my skin feels cold
And I'm getting so tired and so old
The anger swells in my guts
And I won't feel these slices and cuts
I want so much to open your...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:I'm not quite sure that it is only about loss. I understand why many would connect to it like that, but that isn't how I see it at all.
I think that Gary (the singer) is trying to get someone he cares about to turn their life around. He asks them, after all, to "open their eyes", which usually means face the truth, and talks about getting "away from these liars" and they will both "walk from this darkness for the last time". It seems like he is really trying to save this person, because he cares for him/her, but is just "getting so tired and so old" watching them hurt themselves and waiting for them to change. I don't think it matters what the problem is exactly, just that he wants them to realize that they have a problem and change it. -
2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:This song is extremely emotional and powerful.In my opinion this song describes a tragic scene;a sudden loss of a loved one.
"All this feels strange and untrue
"And I won't waste a minute without you
My bones ache, my skin feels cold
And I'm getting so tired and so old"
Here I picture a hospital scene with the loved one in a coma, the family are told that the loved ones condition is rapidly deteriorating with no hope of survival. The situation is so surreal to the person they almost can't believe it and feel numb, helpless, physically and mentally exhausted.
"The anger swells in my guts
And I won't feel these slices and cuts
I want so much to open your eyes
Cos I need you to look into mine
Tell me that you'll open your eyes"
One of the first stages of grief is anger, here its clear the person is so maddened by the situation and cannot understand how someone the love is dying before them while the ache for the person to open their eyes and touch that persons life once more.
"Get up, get out, get away from these liars
Cos they don't get your soul or your fire
Take my hand, knot your fingers through mine
And we'll walk from this dark room for the last time"
This part is in my opinion the most profound part of the song. Because the situation is so surreal and the person doesn't want to believe it, he/she begs that together they leave the 'liars' who say this is the end.The others simply don't understand the loved ones importance to the person,they need that person,they can't leave. He/she begs again for response and embrace from the motionless life...to leave the gloomy situation and never have to face it again.
"Every minute from this minute now
We can do what we like anywhere
I want so much to open your eyes
Cos I need you to look into mine"
The person pleas again and promises that in return for a response they can do anything. They would do anything within their power to see the persons soul again.
"Tell me that you'll open your eyes
All this feels strange and untrue
And I won't waste a minute without you"
The person feels frustrated and panics,they cannot face the pain,they're only hope is to beg.Feeling lost still,the person begins to realize it is really happening and admits 'All this feels strange and untrue'.
They don't know how to go on without the person that meant so much to them.
The loved one will always be missed and remembered. -
3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:to me personally this song is about a guy singing about a significant other not necessarily a girlfriend or boyfriend simply someone that he really cares for, and that person is in a very dark place his or her world has come crashing down and he-her cant find a way out and the singer is there to help hat person.
Get up, get out, get away from these liars
'Cause they don't get your soul or your fire
Take my hand, knot your fingers through mine
And we'll walk from this dark room for the last time
I don’t think that when he talks about open your eyes it means to literary open your eyes but more like there is a way out if he-her can just see that he is there to help. He is not going anywhere
Every minute from this minute now
We can do what we like anywhere
The person means a lot to the singer he needs he-her as much he-her needs the singer´s help I won't waste a minute without you. I think is a song about true friendship and how we are willing to do whatever it takes for those who we love. -
My heart was struck with the possibility that God could speak to us. Jesus died for our sins (slices and cuts) and when we don’t realize that, He wants to open our eyes and know where we can go with Him.
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I am in a long term relationship where early on in our commitment my partner was diagnosed with ms and dementia... he is my rebound so although I love him my heart belongs to another. even to this day I long for my first love...the guilt I have wrestled with you have no clue, he even found me 4 years ago and although we still both have feelings for one another I will not abandon my current relationship. we have been together 44 years.
the song for me recounts all the days that we have fought the darkness since the diagnosis and all the days ahead that I will fight any darkness alone -the dementia has stole parts of my husband and as I am his caregiver now I wish he would open his eyes, reveal himself once again to me because although at times I ached for another my heart holds my husband tenderly and I miss him terribly. -
My mom died a month ago. This song took me to the day before she died. When they called me in ICU to tell me about her condition and say goodbye. The song brought tears to my eyes. The anger, the despair to have her wake up and look at me, the wish that it was not happening. So real it made me live that moment again. Touching her hands and wishing she would wake up.
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He may be telling a person to escape from the people who are oppressing a person who has fire in their soul they want to express their feelings have dreams of success but the only people in this persons life, are oppressive,jealous, do not want to see them become successful.
As a PWD having to constantly fight for basic human rights wanting people to listen to my needs.
I need access, I have the right to access but I have to do a reconnaissance of cafes, restaurants I’m invited to.
Not all restaurants, toilets are accessible even footpaths.
Every day a new barrier I have to face as do all PWD I know.
I used to be able to walk and drive, access any toilet and I never realised what a privilege it was.
Governments, politicians who don’t listen. Children who live in abusive homes that need to be rescued and supported to succeed. Their parents need help to get well from drugs or alcohol that could be a generational thing.
Refugees needing asylum.
So much more awareness is needed in this world.
He is there to rescue this person get them out of the situation they are in and realise they are worthy of love & respect and they can get out of this hole they are in.
Just my hypothesis.
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I love how it is open to any interpretation the listener feels and it evolves along with the one whom is heating the song...for me, however, it always means that the twin flame is known to be out there somewhere and the loss one feels in the separation that knowing holds when still not united in oneness in this dimension.
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I feel it's about someone lost in life and could be for many reasons. Drugs, love etc. They need to walk through the dark room for the last time & get better with the help of a friend or lover admirer or similiar
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I think its about an affair. This is why he feels anger at the start of the song. He wants the girl to leave her partner and be with him. So he's telling her they need to move on together and to open her eyes to his love for her, they can now do as they like and don't have to keep the relationship secret or let anyone else have influence over them.
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For me this is not a song about death or losing someone forever, but rather someone who, for whatever reason, you are unable to get to at present. It is a beautiful and inspiring lyric, and expresses a lot of what I am feeling at the moment. My partner of 20 years was recently admitted to hospital suffering with psychosis and believes herself to be a terrible person who has done terrible things. Neither of these could be further from the truth. She is convinced that she is going to prison for a long time despite all the evidence to the contrary. I have felt angry about it, and deeply hurt by it too as she sees me as an actor who is being paid, and also our children, to obtain the necessary evidence to send her away to prison. All I want is for her to Open Her Eyes, see the truth, then we can walk away from this dark place.
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I think it is about addiction, specifically to opiates - 'open your eyes' meaning both 'wake up to yourself' and literally to stop stupefying yourself with drugs. Mind you I have seen this song used with good effect in a video about saving staffies
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To me this song is about suicide. It is about a person finding out about a friend/family member commited suicide. Them being emotionally shocked, angry, and then in denial about the death.
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I feel this song is about saving another. It is someone who is lost and doesn't realise it. They may feel alone, but that the there is always someone there that will take your hand and help you out of the darkness.
I lost a friend to suicide a number of years ago and any time I hear this song it reminds me of her. that if she had the ability to open her eyes during her deepest darkest moments she would have seen a hand that would have locked them in hers and held her till she could see the light. Edel this is for you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -
I think that good lyrics, like any artform, can be interpreted on more than one level.
I see it like this. We all live in a material world, thinking that's all there is, that's all we are - machines that can feel. We have are eyes shut and are living a lie, in a cold world. The 'singer' in my opinion is the suffering Christ, who wants us to open our eyes, knots our fingers into his, so he can lead us out of the cold room. He want us to open our eyes and become human.
- Michiel -
Whenever I hear this song I always get the same "video" in my head. It just a kind of series of images that my mind strings together, but it's always the same and it seems to fit perfectly with the lyrics. To me the song depicts a person finding their loved one dead after committing suicide.
All this feels strange and untrue
And I won't waste a minute without you
The one who finds their loved one feels unable to accept the fact that they are gone.
They do not wish to go on living without that person.
My bones ache, my skin feels cold
And I'm getting so tired and so old
Their will to live is fading (they begin to feel death)
The anger swells in my guts
They are enraged at whoever placed the victim in such an emotional state
And I won't feel these slices and cuts
They would endure anything to gain vengeance for the death of their loved one
I want so much to open your eyes
'Cause I need you to look into mine
They feel as if they cannot go on without their loved one (they NEED thm look into their eyes)
RefrIan: Tell me that you'll open your eyes
Begging for their loved one and against reality for them to open their eyes and be alive
Get up, get out, get away from these liers
'Cause they don't know your soul or your fire
Begging as if their loved one were still alive: get up and continue to live, to ignore the liers that drove them to that emotional state because those liers don't know who the loved one is and what they are like.
Take my hand, knot your fingers through mine
And we'll walk from this dark room for the last time
If they would just get up they would continue on and live their life
Every minute from this minute now
We can do what we like anywhere
if they would just but get up, they would live a life of meaning together
I want so much to open your eyes
'Cause I need you to look into mine
They would do anything to get their loved one back
They feel they cannot go on without their loved one
Refrain: Tell me that you'll open your eyes
Begging for their loved one to be alive
All this feels strange and untrue
And I won't waste a minute without you
They feel unable to accept the loss of their ones
If their loved ones were alive they would make every moment of their lives unforgettable. -
Go to snowpatrol.com and watch the video taken from the movie "C'etait un Rendezvous". The video for the single Open Your Eyes is taken from “C’était un Rendezvous”, a cult-classic short film made in Paris in 1976 by French filmmaker Claude Lelouch. At the end of the video it shows a young woman running into the arms of a young man. So it appears it may be about love.
Actually, I think the greatest thing about this song is that it can mean different things to different people. It stirs a rush of emotion in me, and yet I have so many different feelings all at once, about love, hurt, deceit....so many things....... -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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