What do you think Cough Syrup means?

Young the Giant: Cough Syrup Meaning

Tagged: Zombies [suggest]
Album cover for Cough Syrup album cover

Covered By: Glee Cast


Cough Syrup Lyrics

Life's too short to even care at all oh,
I'm losing my mind losing my mind losing control.
These fishes in the sea they're staring at me oh oh,
Oh oh oh oh,
A wet world aches for a beat of a drum.
Oh.

If I could find a way to see this...

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  1. anonymous
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     Aug 30th 2012 !⃝

    I think this song is about going out there and making your dreams come true and taking risks, " Life's too short to even care at all" and when he says "... i'd run away to some fortune that I-I should have found by now" it is another way of saying once he sees a chance to get his dreams that he will take it because he was too afraid to before. When he says " waiting for this cough syrup to come down" he is referring to waiting for the fear/ stress to go away. i came up with this conclusion because cough syrup isn't very tasty and it also relieves stress.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  2. anonymous
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     Aug 7th 2012 !⃝

    I just like the song and lyrics and don't go toward interpretation cause of my age.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  3. anonymous
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     Jul 5th 2012 !⃝

    I think the song has a double meaning. First off, he could just be talking about being addicted to Cough Syrup and using it to get high.
    But to me, the song is deeper than that, a plea for help. It has suicide messages. Wanting to die, so he's taking spoonfuls of cough syrup until he can finally let go.
    That's how I see it, because that's how I feel.

  4. anonymous
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     Jun 18th 2012 !⃝

    Suicide, overdose on cough syrup..

  5. anonymous
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     Jun 6th 2012 !⃝

    You can't deny that this song is referring to the trip caused by cough syrup. This is clearly a double meaning. The song refers to different parts of the trip and also uses metaphors to relate to society. I realize the band has said what their intention was with the meaning. But it was definitely also associating with the high on cough syrup. Anyone who denies that is completely ignorant.

  6. anonymous
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     Apr 23rd 2012 !⃝

    I think that somehow everything matches with the true meaning of this song, because behind every word is hiding a different etymology for each of us.
    For example:
    When I listen to this song I always have a bittersweet feeling. I have the sense that some "bad" things, persons, situations leave me behind and break me down, like I am their target and they are always after me trying to hurt me. But then I have to realize that life's too short to even care at all and that I have to pick myself up and carry on and ignore them.

  7. anonymous
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     Apr 22nd 2012 !⃝

    These are all pretty ok interpretations..I have taken them all into considereation... Yes... In the beginning it is a happy song.. But he is probably under the influence of couph syrup so he feels good..I feel this is the case because he says to himself life is to short to even care at all and that he is waiting for the couph syrup to come down so he can I guess find his fortune and restore his life to the way it should be...he may have taken it to postpone these tough goals or relieve stress within himself and it works, it makes him happy... However at the end he says"one more spoon of cough syrup now" in a fairly sad tone... The medicine has worn out and He has become "sober" if u will, and all of those sad feelings return and he starts to doubt himself again... It is a sad song in the end.. It makes me feel like there really is no hope so just take some couph syrup and sleep your worries away..

  8. anonymous
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     Mar 26th 2012 !⃝

    I think it's a song about rejection and him basically not accepting it... he's in love with this girl and she's told him she's just not into him and so he's swallowing the 'cough syrup' or hard truth of it all... and he's basically trying to convince himself that he shouldn't care because life is too short to give a shit about what one person thinks....
    'These fishes in the sea they're staring at me'
    --> other fish in the sea reference

  9. anonymous
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     Mar 25th 2012 !⃝

    The cough syrup is sort of symbolism for the drowsy cough syrup. In this case sleeping means dying. Taking the cough syrup means ending your life.

    The fishes in the sea and the zombies in the park demonstrate a feeling of isolation and being singled out and targeted.

    Life being "too short to even care at all" points out the futility of life. Since you're not going to live long enough to get anything done why even bother.

    I know my interpretation sounds really pessimistic but the overall tone kinda suggests that.. watching the video clip is kind of a mind#@%$ though.

  10. anonymous
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     Mar 24th 2012 !⃝

    Cough syrup cures the symptoms, but not the sickness. That's the key metaphor here. The singer laments how he has wasted so much of his life already, and promises that he will fix it soon, as soon as he gets past whatever quick fix he is using now (as represented by the syrup going down). Yet he knows deep down inside that he has made this promise to himself many times before, to no avail, and will probably do so again. He is learning to accept his limitations, even while he hates how they trap him.

  11. anonymous
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     Mar 21st 2012 !⃝

    I am a total geek so my interpretation of this song is definitely based on the episode in which they preformed it. To start off its basically about a gay person committing suicide. When the song says "life's to short to even care at all" he is saying y should I care if they tease me about being. He is "loosing his mind" because everyone is making fun of him. The fish that are staring at him or the zombies that want his heart are the people that make fun of him. Whether its the wet world aching for a beat of a drum or the dark world acing for a slash of the sun, it's just a simple way of saying that the cruel people or the world need to find guidance and acception. A beat of a drum keeps the band in time so it's like saying everyone needs guidance. When he says"if I could find a way to see this straight I'd run away to some fortune" I think it means he wants to understand why people r mean and the fortune could be death which he thinks he should've found by now. Cough syrup could just be a metaphor for suicide. Then when it says "and so I'll run to the things they say will restore me restore life the way it should be" this meaning he wants to die so that he can be normaland not gay and maybe have a better life in heaven. This is just my thoughts of this song but it could be wrong. :)

  12. anonymous
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     Mar 6th 2012 !⃝

    As a close friend of YTG i have to say its not about tripping. At its simplest, it is about taking chances and getting to where you want to be in life, as Sameer's already stated in multiple interviews...but only Sameer understands the meaning of every word. As someone on here already said, true music is poetry.

  13. anonymous
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     Feb 28th 2012 !⃝

    My interpretation is that he's trying to commit suicide because life sucks and he's drinking the cough syrup to end his misery and he's waiting for it to work and hes thinking about the good things before his time is up.

  14. anonymous
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     Feb 25th 2012 !⃝

    the way I see it, people can say whatever they want, and the band can mean something completely different, but that doesn't matter. What matters is what each person takes away from it. Whatever makes them feel good is what it means. Honestly to me, I see it as someone who is struggling in life and trying to get by as people are watching your every move waiting to criticize or bring you down. Using cough syrup as a way to escape. "and so i run now to things they said could restore me." I honestly don't care what it's really about. It helps me sympathise with others going through pains so bad they need to od on things like DXM- and I used to take excessive cough syrup a while back, so i can sympathise with the song in that aspect as well, so that's what i take away from it, and that's all that matters.

  15. anonymous
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     Feb 24th 2012 !⃝

    I believe this is about considering suicide, or being in the process. "lifes too short to even care at all" can be seen as a reason that it would not matter. Also, it seems by how much the line "waiting for this cough syrup to come down" is repeated, and "one more spoon of cough syrup now" that it was possible to have OD already

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