a year ago a coworker ended his life. This song really spoke to me. Over the last year I had the opportunity to visit the west coast. I never had the opportunity, & this was a fluke. I stood on the coast observing the beauty and it reminded me that my world is bigger than my problems. Miss you Captain... Wish we would have known what was up. We cared for you like a brother.
Listening to this song takes me back when I was suicidal,and I am glad I didn’t take my life. I wouldn’t have been able to have seen the west coast. (Metaphorically of course,I’ve never been to that part of the country,yet)
This song... In never sat down to really listen to the lyrics. I have no words to say how brilliant these lyrics are... how much I needed to hear them. How it makes me feel like there is hope... A West Coast. Thank you Emery.
second wave TnN is GOAT'd. I wish I spent more time with Emery and Underoath but I was still in middle school spending so much time with TFK and FM Static and Hawk Nelson.
I listen to this song every time I'm sad or having a panic attack. I find myself repeating the line, "If I could just kill myself" every time my thoughts turn this way. But when I listen to the song, it just calms me so much and I don't know why....
These guys bring back so many memories for me, good and bad! They were my absolute favorite band in high school in the late 2000s and early 2010s! I had a nostalgia kick and started going through these songs I loved back then and it put a smile on my face! Definitely got me through some rough times back then.
I believe it stems from the idea of Horace Greeley's quote, "Go West, young man" which was popularized during Manifest Destiny when America was expanding west. Half of the continent was an unexplored area, a chance for a new life, new opportunities, something mysterious and we had this insatiable need to discover every distant corner. You could leave your life behind and just go west. So in relation to the song, the narrator fails to achieve this hope for a new life and rebirth, metaphorically.
Then I definitely recommend listening to their album The Question. Most of my favorite Emery lyrics are from that one. It's really a work of art musically and lyrically.
Basically, the song is a description of "those thoughts in the middle of the night," from debating suicide to trying to find out who you really are. The end of the song though is hopeful in saying that when you feel this way you're never alone, and that while it may feel like you'll never see the "west coast," together with those who love you and feel the same as you, "we" (meaning the singer and everyone who's ever felt that way) are eventually going to see the other, brighter side of it all.
I don't think that is what is meant by that line. I think he is saying that no matter how bad things get, hold onto something because there is someone else out there that feels just like you do. There is always something to live for, even if it is as silly as wanting to see the west coast.
I always thought of it as the suicidal kid realizing hes gunna keep on living and saying, "since im still here, we gotta go see the west coast" to his friends. realizing we gotta live like we could doe tomorrow to make life worth it. just my interpretation though.
However I think the genius in a lot of Emery's lyrics are the multiple meanings of certain things. You could also take the whole coast thing literally, as something that the narrator really wanted to do but never did and now on the threshold of suicide he regrets not being able to do that. So at the end, he says to those who feel lost and hopeless that it'll get better, and you should take advantage of being alive and do all those little things you've ever wanted to do (like see the west coast).
Thanks! So what the singer is saying is that he never got to see his new life or happier times? But in the end he tells those who are going through the same he is going through that they still have a chance to see their "west coast"?
@DarkWarriorSafeGuard well, I'm not really a christian person, I rather believe in my friends, but still, thanks :) I was in a really bad mood when wrote that comment.
