What do you think Black Dresses means?

The Spill Canvas: Black Dresses Meaning

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Album cover for Black Dresses album cover

Black Dresses Lyrics

In muddy grass we stand side by side
With our knuckles interlocked
Black dresses flood the cemetery
In this cliche tragedy

Just do as you're instructed and....
Take this razor and cut your palms
I'll do the same until a river of crimson...

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  1. anonymous
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     Sep 22nd 2011 !⃝

    What I get from the song is a person standing with their close friend, lover, sibling, or maybe even themselves (who they are and who they want to be), and they're looking back at the past. It's about how life swirls around you and before you know it, the past, the "childhood" and innocence is gone. It's about killing ones self and yet finally living. It's about looking back on what you thought was and finally seeing it for what it really was. The lines "But the irony of the story is when I fell to my knees
    And began clawing at the dirt in front of the tombstone
    Of my bashful childhood" reminds me of looking back at childhood and suddenly seeing that it wasn't all that happy. So it's not necessarily about the end of childhood, but more the end of innocence and being oblivious to things that you don't really want to know/remember. Or, at least that's what I get from it. That's how it makes me feel.

  2. anonymous
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     Feb 9th 2010 !⃝

    I agree with the ideas about the death of the childhoods, except I think it is about two people, a young couple maybe, both losing their innocence together. I also agree that it feels most like this death of the childhoods wasn't by choice. I see if as one of them was forced to say goodbye, so the lover follows them (which is part of the desperate love in the song) I also think that explains the part about the razor and cutting their wrists.

  3. anonymous
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     Oct 17th 2009 !⃝

    No no all that above is bull.

    The songwriters were two brothers, not anyone from the spill canvas, they just performed it and now having said that.

    The song is about a death of a close relative more then likely a mother or father.
    Almost the whole song he is talking to someone again more then likely the brother, (Just do as your instructed, take this razor cut your palms, I'll do the same....drip your ruby red...

    noteable in the second verse (The fear that part of me is dying) that he was very close to his mother/fater.

    Then it all comes together when he drops to his knees (at the tombstone of his childhood (or the memories with his mother/father) Then he says with you screaming at the top of your lungs "let it go" (thats the brother that he's talking to throughout the song)
    It all goes on just to talk about the death of the mother/father
    Although it could be all interpreted differently but same concept, instead of being close to the mother/father he was distant and regrets missing his childhood with them that there for he feels guilty

  4. anonymous
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     Jan 14th 2008 !⃝

    I agree with "anonymous" above me, but I would also add that he had no control of his childhood, and that is symbolized in the funeral, which he had no control over either. I.e. "and who picked the music"

    great song :)

  5. anonymous
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     Jan 10th 2008 !⃝

    This song is pretty clear cut if you actually listen to it. It is about someone who feels they are growing up too fast and is unsatisfied with the way he lived his childhood. He wishes he could go back and re live it. When he is sitting at the funeral for his childhood he starts screaming, saying how he is unsatisfied with the choices he made and the things he did. This is my favorite song ever by the spill canvas, mostly because I thought about this song for the longest time trying to figure out exactly what it was about, and I'm pretty sure I nailed it.


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