MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Wire to wire (Razorlight)
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3:12
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/music/wire-to-wire-razorlight-504
Description

A beautiful sad romantic song about the scars of love. Try to understand the lyrics.


The expression "wire to wire" means "from start to finish" and it also expresses connectivity, communication (like on both sides of a telephone line). This song is talking about a communication problem, a lack of connectivity.


You can also sing to the karaoke version here.

Transcript

What is love but the strangest of feelings?
A sin you swallow for the rest of your life?
You've been looking for someone to believe in
To love you, until your eyes run dry

She lives on Disillusion Road
We go where the wild blood flows
On our bodies we share the same scar
Love me, wherever you are

How do you love with a fate full of rust?
How do you turn what the savage take?
You've been looking for someone you can trust
To love you, again and again

How do you love in a house without feelings?
How do you turn what the savage take?
I've been looking for someone to believe in
Love me, again and again

She lives by disillusions glow
We go where the wild blood flows
On our bodies, we share the same scar

How do you love on a night without feelings?
She says "love, I hear sound, I see fury"
She says "love's not a hostile condition"
Love me, wherever you are

Love me, wherever you are
Love me, wherever you are
Love me, wherever you are
Wherever you are

Explanations

This is British English. In phonetics, pay attention to two sounds, the vowel in CAR (/ɑ:/), which is at the end of many lines in the words "are" and "scar"; notice how it sounds, deep and long, with no /r/ sound to it. And also notice the vowel in "love" /lʌv/, it sounds the same as in HUT or "bus", but not like in SOCK.

WHAT IS LOVE BUT THE STRANGEST OF FEELINGS? = Love is the strangest of feelings.

SIN= A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate.

SWALLOW= To cause (food or drink, for example) to pass through the mouth and throat into the stomach. But here, it is used in a metaphorical sense: "to swallow a sin for the rest of your life" means that that sin will be inside you forever, it’s something you can’t forget or recover from.

UNTIL YOUR EYES RUN DRY= Until you stop crying (so they dry).

DISILLUSION= An illusion is something that looks like one thing in appearance, but it is another thing in reality, so if you have an illusion you are deceived, your perception is wrong. If something or somebody disillusions you, they make you disappointed by showing you that something that you thought was true or good is not really true or good. So disillusion (or "disillusionment") has not a positive meaning because you suffer and find out that things are worse than you thought.

SHE LIVES ON DISILLUSION ROAD= She has no hope anymore. "Disillusion Road" is a metaphorical street where there is no hope (only disillusion), and she lives there.

BLOOD= The red liquid running through your body to keep you alive. Careful, it sounds /blʌd/.

WE GO WHERE THE WILD BLOOD FLOWS= Rivers flow to the ocean. Where does the wild blood flows? No idea, but he probably means something like "passion leads our life" or something.

SHARE= To allow someone to have part of something you possess. But it may also mean "to have something in common". The sentence "we share the same scar" means that we both have a scar of the same kind.

SCAR= A mark left on the skin after an injury or wound has healed or is healing. If you cut your hand with a knife, you will have a scar in the future. In this song it refers to a broken heart.

WHEREVER= I don’t know where; it doesn’t matter where.

LOVE ME, WHEREVER YOU ARE= As I said in the beginning, I think this means that she’s far away into her own world of pain and suffering, probably depressed, or cold and distant, so he can’t reach her, he can't get to her heart.

FATE= Destiny.

RUST= A metal, like iron, gets rust if it is exposed to the elements (especially water) and it deteriorates. Rust is a reddish powder in iron, or green in copper. If something rusts or gets rusty, it deteriorates because it is not well taken care of or because it is not practised enough (e.g. "my French is getting rusty").

A FATE FULL OF RUST= He probably means: a bad destiny (deteriorated, like rusty metal). Or maybe the question "how do you love with a fate full of rust" means that she’s not loving anymore, so her love is rusty (deteriorated because not practised) and, if she doesn’t change, her destiny will just continue like that: a life without love, because she can’t love anymore.

SAVAGE= A savage person is ferocious, uncivilized. Pronounced /sævɪdʒ/.

THE SAVAGE= We can use the construction "the + adjective" meaning "all the people with that quality":
- the poor = the poor people
- The difference between the poor and the rich has been reduced in this country.
So "the savage" means "the savage people", that’s why the verb is in the plural ("the savage take"). If we said "the savage takes", then "the savage" would refer to a person, not a group of people.

HOW DO YOU TURN WHAT THE SAVAGE TAKE?= How can you change, reverse, what the savage people took away from you.

HOW DO YOU LOVE IN A HOUSE WITHOUT FEELINGS?= This YOU is impersonal (= anybody); in fact he refers to himself. He sees their relationship like a house without feelings, because she can’t feel anything, her heart is death. So how can he love her when she doesn’t love him? He can’t understand why, but he loves her anyway, or maybe he’s trying to love her but he doesn’t find it easy anymore, that’s why he’s asking.

GLOW= A glow may be either a light (like a hot metal, red and warm) or a sensation (physical or psychological) of warmth, well-being.

SHE LIVES BY DISILLUSIONS GLOW= I think he means that she finds comfort in her disillusionment (like a dog finds comfort by the warmth of the fire). Some people get depressed and they can’t get over it (stop that bad situation) because they feel "comfortable" with that situation they know and they don’t want to get out of their suffering because they are very afraid of change.

FURY= Violent anger. Uncontrolled violence.

HOSTILE= If something is hostile, it is not friendly, it is a threat, a danger, it may attack you or cause you some kind of pain or damage.

Meaning

It’s not easy to say exactly what this song is talking about. I think the key phrase here is "love me, wherever you are". He’s asking her to love him "wherever she may be". Does he mean that he doesn’t know where she is? Does he mean that she’s far away into her own distant world and he can’t reach her?

If we consider the first case, then this is a song about someone who wants to find his true love but he hasn’t found it yet. If we consider the second case (which I definitely favour), they are together in a relationship, but she has suffered so much from a previous relationship that she’s depressed or distrustful and he can’t get her to really trust him and love him.

He's one of the crowd, but everything she’s been through he's felt her pain, and he doesn't understand how he can love her while she’s still all hurt and distant, because they're so different, but he still does.