Track 11: Can’t Stay Here
This song melodically sounds very much early 2000’s, with the tones of Staind, Daughtry, and other alternative rock bands. This song definitely has grown on me – though I will say it’s not my favorite on the album. It does show some vulnerability and the melody matches that.
Lyrical Analysis
Somewhere between another good night and my own apathy
No one can see the me that I hide, my misery hates company
What’s another cup half full? All these people I don’t know
Someone turn the lights on, when does this place close?
This verse feels like the inbetween of a crash out and figuring your next steps. The idea of masking our pain and making us a bit cold to the world is very relatable. Have you ever ran into someone who when you ask questions they simply reply they ‘don’t care’ or have ‘given up’ but you do know they care? That’s the feeling I get from these first two lines.
My misery hates company is also so real to me. When I am sad, depressed, or having anxiety attacks, I do not want to be around people – and most of the time I prefer to be alone.
He has mentioned before his life is filled with people around him, but no one truly to lean on or to call – In this moment, he is the pessimist surrounded by people who can’t tell he is putting up a front,.
The last line I am in between thinking this is a physical bar or a metaphor for asking someone to help him out of the inbetween- like, ‘when does this feeling end?’
‘Cause I don’t care where you go
But you can’t stay here
I don’t need to know where you disappeared to
Everyone’s high, it’s time to go home
Don’t say you’re gone, just leave me alone
I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here
The reason I am in between in thinking this is a metaphor is because, sure, the first line here can be a physical bar – which does absolutely paint a scene in my head – but If this is from his point of view, he is wondering when the lights will come on, asking himself where he went, why he is in this situation [or really, a bar] and talking to himself about his pessimistic version who is full of apathy and a front.
You could take this chorus from a very literal perspective as the bartender talking to him – but none of these lyrics are in quotations – so it makes me think he is talking to himself.
On this lonely night, it’s the last call
On the jukebox, I spend my last dime on a sad song (uh-uh-uh)
What’s another cigarette smoked? Wasted words I spoke
Someone turn the lights on, when does this place close?
So now we really are in a bar, maybe always have been, or maybe we have transitioned from metaphorical to physical. It’s the last call, last minutes before this place shuts down, and a sad song is played. He is standing by the jukebox, in his feelings, smoking a cigarette [and if he is sober at this point, then that’s all he has], and now he is really asking someone, when they close? When do the lights come on from this dimly lit bar? When does he wake up from this nightmare.
‘Cause I don’t care where you go
But you can’t stay here
I don’t need to know where you disappeared to
Everyone’s high, it’s time to go home
Don’t say you’re gone, just leave me alone
I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here
5 a.m., no one’s home, is this my fault?
Sleep with my phone on loud, hoping you’ll call
But it’s silent, why can’t I accept that you won’t?
Let me let this go, let me let this go
When he does go home – no one is there.
Waiting for someone to call – a faux reality.
I really don’t think this song is about Megan – at first I did, thinking maybe it was before rehab, but I also wonder if this is another tribute to his recent friends passing. Could it be both? Absolutely.
Going home to an empty house, no one around, trapped in our apathy, and surrounded by grief.
I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here
I don’t need to know where you disappeared to
Everyone’s high (everyone’s high)
It’s time to go home (time to go home)
Don’t say you’re gone, just leave me alone
I (I) don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here
Can’t stay here
(Mm-mm-mm)
Can’t stay here
Visual Representation
200 asa kodak gold 35mm film
5 a.m., no one’s home, is this my fault?
Sleep with my phone on loud, hoping you’ll call
But it’s silent, why can’t I accept that you won’t?
Let me let this go, let me let this go