"Learn You Inside Out"

[allie]

Alright, so this week's discussion is going to be on "learn you inside out," one of my personal favorites from the album. i guess i shall start us off!

Here's the lyrics for those who want the for reference:

See my feet on the ground
But it feels like the worlds gravity drowned
When I'm with you I'm high

Instead of hiding my face
My minds in your eyes
Can your love embrace
Me as I am

In the silence you stare at the world
Your eyes are screaming to be heard
I want to learn you inside out

Time isn't on our side
All we have now
For the rest of our lives
Let's stay up all night

In the silence you stare at the world
Your eyes are screaming to be heard
I want to learn you inside out

All that changes is time
Can't keep you inside of me
You're out of my mind
I wear you on my sleeve
In the silence you stare at the world
your eyes are screaming to be heard
I want to learn you inside out

I see all that you want to be
Look into your soul
Looking right back at me
I want to learn you inside out

alright here i go!

right off the bat i love the imagery and such that jason is using. i love the idea of a "gravity drowned" world because he feels so high when he is with his lover (as i take this song to be for). i also love how his mind, not just him, but all he stands for and all his thoughts are out there for her to see and hes asking if she can still love him for him.. which is just fabulous.
then i think it turns and he says how her "eyes are screaming to be heard." the way that he is all out there for her to see, she is holding back herself and he wants to learn her "inside out."
i think one of my all-time favorite lines from the album is the "i wear you on my sleeve." its so cute! like how one wears their heart on their sleeve, he wears her, cause she has his heart... hes letting her know she can open up and be herself cause already cause hes proud of her (hence wearing her on his sleeve for all to see). that is what i always took away from it at any rate.

i suppose that is pretty much it as it repeats, but yes.. i want to see what others have to say, so come on!

(this is my first thread i started with a poll.. haha took me a while to figure out... )

[gogonutz]

I could never figure out if this was a spiritual song or a love song. But to me personally it is neither.

For some reason I've always had this scene in my head of this young boy who is really unhappy with his life. He gets bullied, has no friends, is clumsy, etc. the whole shh-bang. And this is like the song (even though it's almost a poem in my eyes) is like a duet between the young boy and his mom.

First two verses = boy, chorus = mom, 3rd verse = boy, rest = mom

Like the boy's crying out for help/attention saying it's so hard, and the mom is telling him that he can be proud of himself like she is proud of him.

and the line/title: "(I wanna) learn you inside out" for me means "I want you to learn how to live inside out", like the mom's telling the boy not to look what's on the surface but what's underneath. He might not be the most handsome kid, and he might not be able to run as fast as some other kids and he might never make it to the NFL, but still he can achieve great things, if he believes in himself. Because the strength is inside him, and if he lets it come out, he's capable of anything.


I don't know if it makes sense to someone else, but that's always what I feel with this song.

[RunningAway]

i love this song too. but, if i possibly can, i always try to look at songs that sound like love songs on the first listen, in a different life. i've never had a romantic experience, so i almost never like to think of these as love songs, except obvious ones like YAM.

I see this song as someone speaking about him/herself. i often picture this song while looking in the mirror, "i want to learn you inside out," because i don't think anyone knows who they are completely. you want to be something...you want to experience life and something...most of the time yourself...is holding you back.

"i see all that you want to be, look into your soul looking right back at me," that's why i always look at the song as myself looking in a mirror.

even in the beginning, i take those lines as just excepting yourself for who you are and asking to love and respect yourself more.

[klein]

This song is one of my top 3 favorites on this record.. I love it!!! I'm at work now so can't post a long interpretation but I'll do it later..

[Yuliya]

I absolutely love this song. I remember my first listen through this album, I was disapppointed with it (I think because I was for some reason expecting a fast song, and got mellowed out by the easier to be-mmo-mesmerized line up). But then I really listened to it, and to the lyrics and fell in love.

I, personally, take the song, similar to Allie's perspective, as a love song. (I'm the opposite of Maureen lol. I've never had a romantic experience either, but it I guess the hopeless romantic in me likes to think everything is a love song first lol). To me it's basically a guy who's so in love with a girl, telling her "I want to know everything about you". He's (possbily for the first time in a relationship) being his true self around her, and he wants to know everything that's in her mind that she won't let other people know ("silence you stare at the world"), and be the guy that she can rely on to confide in. It's like he knows that there's so much bottled up inside of her and she just needs that one person (and he knows that she's that one for him). Looking into each other souls, its like that connection you get when you're in love, and you can see deeply into the person and its that core that you're in love with.

I love the line: "I wear you on my sleeve"
I think it's one of the best lines in the album, and it really sticks out of the song for me. I love the imagery with it, and I think, it's a very romantic line.

I also love the part where he sings: "Time isn't on our side, all we have now, for the rest of our lives. Let's stay up all night"
Again, I took it as kind of a romantic plea, of a guy just wanting to be with this girl and not lose a single second.

[sylviagrace]

Jun 26, 2008 8:07:53 GMT -5 gogonutz said:

I could never figure out if this was a spiritual song or a love song. But to me personally it is neither.

For some reason I've always had this scene in my head of this young boy who is really unhappy with his life. He gets bullied, has no friends, is clumsy, etc. the whole shh-bang. And this is like the song (even though it's almost a poem in my eyes) is like a duet between the young boy and his mom.

First two verses = boy, chorus = mom, 3rd verse = boy, rest = mom

Like the boy's crying out for help/attention saying it's so hard, and the mom is telling him that he can be proud of himself like she is proud of him.

and the line/title: "(I wanna) learn you inside out" for me means "I want you to learn how to live inside out", like the mom's telling the boy not to look what's on the surface but what's underneath. He might not be the most handsome kid, and he might not be able to run as fast as some other kids and he might never make it to the NFL, but still he can achieve great things, if he believes in himself. Because the strength is inside him, and if he lets it come out, he's capable of anything.


I don't know if it makes sense to someone else, but that's always what I feel with this song.

Wow, Koen, I never thought about it that way before, but I really like this perspective. I think it's going to change how I think of the song, because it didn't have much meaning for me before. This is one of the songs that I hadn't thought much about.

[sylviagrace]

Jun 26, 2008 13:28:55 GMT -5 RunningAway said:

i love this song too. but, if i possibly can, i always try to look at songs that sound like love songs on the first listen, in a different life. i've never had a romantic experience, so i almost never like to think of these as love songs, except obvious ones like YAM.

Hey, me too. I never feel like I can relate to love songs, because I've never been in love. I try to relate them to other kinds of relationships. And I love your mirror interpretation.

[adhara]

I think this song is a love song about opening up, but it has always confused me because the word "you" could refer to so many different things.

To me, the song seems like a duet. Mostly, the song plays in my head as a scene, where two characters (they could be lovers, or friends, or somebody and God) are having a conversation at night. Lets say it's a boy and a girl. There are issues bottled up inside the boy but he's ready to tell her about them ("instead of hiding my face"). He's willing to let her judge him ("my minds in your eyes"), and is hoping that she'll still love him despite it all ("can your love embrace / me as I am").

The girl sees/understands how important it is for him to talk about his issues ("your eyes are screaming to be heard"), and encourages him to talk ("I walk to learn you inside out"). The guy realizes that it's now or never.. ("time isn't on our side / all we have is now").

In chorus, the girl keeps echoing her sentiments about wanting to hear what's been on his mind, trying to conveying to him that her love will embrace who he is.

In the verse "All that changes is time/can't keep you inside of me/you're out of my mind/i wear you on my sleeve" I think the "you" refers to the issues inside that have been bugging him. The guy realizes that his relationship with the girl won't be harmed because the girl will still love him regardless. With that, he decides to finally let go. The problems/issues go from being in his mind to being expressed (onto the sleeve).

Throughout this time, the girl keeps encouraging him to talk. At the end, she understands what's been on his mind, frustrating him, etc ("I see all that you want to be"). The guy has bared everything to her, and she knows and appreciates that. It's like she can see right into his soul now ("look into your soul/looking right back at me").

Anyhoo.. everytime I think about this song, I also imagine it could be a very beautiful painting.

[liz4600]

I really like this song but I've always taken it as a love song....but the other interpretations , I never saw(or heard ) it that way, they're all very good!

[lhrulz2007]

This was the song on this album that really grew on me. I didn't like it alot when I first heard it but now it's one of my favorites. I never have really been able to understand it as more than a love song. I seems to have deeper meaning but I can't quite figure it out. It seems to, i'm not sure if this is the right word for what i'm trying to say, but contradict itself when I try to figure it out. It makes wonder if it's sung from the perspective of mutiple characters or maybe just about different times in a relationship.

[katelyn]

wow, i'm loving everyone's different interpretations!

[jolene102]

i'm glad you listed the lyrics because i never really read them. the only line i knew was the title in the chorus. after reading the lyrics for the first time last week, it kind of made me think it was a song about wanting to get to know God and learn everything about him. but it also made me think of a love song between a guy & a girl. After re-reading the lyrics today, i do feel it's a love song rather than spiritual song.

[imagine]

This is one of my favorites off the album too! I've always thought of this song as a love song. A guy's completely in love with this girl that has so much depth to her and wants to know everything about her. I see "can't keep you inside of me...I wear you on my sleeve" as in how the guy can't keep his love for her to himself; he must show the world how much he loves her.

[savemeimdtba]

I wish I still had my interpretation of what I thought in the beginning about this song.. this is one my favorite songs from "Who We Are". It's a TRUE love song to me; when I listen to it I can feel that feeling of when you're first falling in love - as someone said above; my favorite line is "I wear you on my Sleeve". The imagery and emotion in that line alone makes me feel all warm in fuzzy. To me it means that he can't deny how he feels about this girl and there's no way he can hide - it's there for the world to see and he's okay with that.

This was the song that I've always said would be my wedding song and I still feel that way Now, I've just got to convince the fiance to feel that way as well.

[Deleted]

Ooh, this is fun! I never thought of it as a love song until I read your interpretations above--now I can see that. This is the first Lifehouse song that gave me a tear in my eye the first time I heard it. It's very vulnerable.

At first I thought it was referring to someone with a disability--like autism. "In silence you stare at the world. You're eyes are screaming to be heard."

But after I heard the lyrics a few times, I thought it might be about Jason's relationship with and love of music or maybe getting into other people's music. I was thinking of the cover of a CD as eyes screaming to be heard. Learning music inside out. Being high when he is playing music and escaping from the gravity drowned world. My favorite line is, "You're out of my mind. I wear you on my sleeve." So, when he is writing lyrics, he is getting them out of his head in a therapeutic way, but then is wearing them figuratively on his sleeve where it's vulnerable, but also literally on his ipod. And I also thought about the mirror image with the "soul staring right back at me."

Or as we were joking about in the "OTHER" forum, maybe it's about his love of Turkey legs or Subway. LOL!