# Wake Up -Arcade Fire Lyrics



## irandom97 (Jan 28, 2012)

_Somethin' filled up
my heart with nothin',
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I'm older,
my heart's colder,
and I can see that it's a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don't grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We're just a million little god's causin rain storms
Turnin' every good thing to rust.

I guess we'll just have to adjust.

With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin' to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin'
With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am go-goin'

You better look out below!_

I've been having a rough day today and i've known this song forever but when it came on I kinda related to some of the lyrics, but it was all in my own way. I've been feeling frustrated and over-emotional and when i heard "Now that i'm older, my heart's colder" and I don't know, it kinda brought me some peace, thinking that we aren't always going to be this emotional. But now that I read it more, it seems like it's about something that happened to someone, and he repressed it, and now it's eating him up as he got older.

Even if my meaning isn't exactly the same as the general meaning, it still gave me some peace. And I think the overall message is just to *stay strong through tough times*, and that we're just going to have to adjust most of the time. "If the children dont grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up". Kinda goes with my initial meaning, that when we do grow up our hearts aren't going to be so fragile. What do you guys think of these lyrics?


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## Fruitcake (Jan 19, 2012)

I am terrible at interpreting song lyrics. I just looked this up on songmeanings and the top comment is this:
"To me it's about lost innocence and those things you bury inside just to carry on, the things which slowly eat you up, leaving you unfeeling and cold. It's urging the innocents to be honest with themselves and confront those things which, if ignored, could leave them bottled up and emotionless. But the end of the song seems to be about the explosion of emotion that comes when the unfeeling ones come to life again."

If that were the general meaning, the line "If the children dont grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up" would probably mean that if you don't develop mentally by confronting your traumas or fears ("grow up") you'll physically age but you'll suffer emotionally. "Now that i'm older, my heart's colder" would be a reference to the first stanza... like... they were told not to cry, to repress their emotions... and now they have grown up that way and have suffered/their heart's become colder and can see that it is wrong to not express/confront your emotions. That would fit with needing to be strong through tough times, rather than just avoiding things or blocking them out.

It makes more sense than my original guess, which was that it was about children transitioning into adulthood and losing certain things... strong emotions, meaning, wonder etc. Like the way adults get used to the world and society and don't see everything as magical anymore and become numbed. But reading the lyrics properly I realise that doesn't fit.

Some of your interpretation may not fit with what was intended either, I don't know, but it doesn't make it any less wonderful that you relate to it and got that meaning from it. Sometimes I gain certain meanings from things and then find out that it's not what the author or whoever really intended, but it's still lovely to have that meaning for myself. It seems sort of interactive, like the author has contributed the words and their meaning and you can contribute your own meaning to form the whole experience.

It's a beautiful song. The same thing happened to me years after I discovered it when I was having an awful day. I love its intensity.

I hope you had a better day today.


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