You Are What You Love
Love's Illusions: Unveiling the Hidden Meanings in Jenny Lewis' 'You Are What You Love'
Lyrics
This is no great illusion
This situation is not a grand deception.
When I'm with you I'm looking for a ghost
When I'm with you, I'm searching for something elusive.
Or invisible reasons
Or reasons that are not easily visible.
To fall out of love and run screaming from our home
To end the romantic feelings and leave our home abruptly.
Because we live in a house of mirrors
Our environment reflects back our own insecurities.
We see our fears and everything
We confront our fears and everything else.
Our songs, faces, and secondhand clothes
Our creations, appearances, and used clothing.
But more and more we're suffering
However, increasingly, we are experiencing hardship.
Not nobody, not a thousand beers
No one or even excessive alcohol can alleviate our profound loneliness.
Can keep us from feeling so all alone
We can't escape the feeling of being isolated.
But you are what you love
One's true essence is defined by what one loves.
And not what loves you back
It's not determined by what reciprocates that love.
That's why I'm here on your doorstep
That's why I'm standing at your door, asking for another chance.
Pleading for you to take me back
Pleading for you to accept me back.
The phone is a fine invention
The telephone is a useful invention.
It allows me to talk endlessly to you
It enables me to talk endlessly with you.
About nothing disguising my intentions
Talking about trivial matters while concealing my true intentions.
Which I'm afraid, my friend, are wildly untrue
My intentions, my friend, are likely untrue and deceptive.
It's a sleight of hand, a white soul band
It's a skillful deception, a musical genre associated with white artists.
The heart attacks I'm convinced I have
Referring to the anxiety and stress I believe I experience.
Every morning upon waking
Every morning, convinced I'm having heart attacks.
To you I'm a symbol or a monument
To you, I'm either a symbol or a monument.
Your right of passage to fufillment
Your rite of passage to fulfillment.
But I'm not yours for the taking
But I'm not available for you to claim.
But you are what you love
Your true essence is defined by what you love.
And not what loves you back
Not by what reciprocates that love.
I guess that's why you keep calling me back
Perhaps that's why you repeatedly reach out to me.
I'm fraudulent, a thief at best
I'm deceptive, possibly a thief.
A coward who paints a bullshit canvas
A fearful person who creates false realities.
Things that will never happen to me
Imagining things that will never happen to me.
But at arms length, it's Tim who said
But from a distance, Tim recognizes my proficiency.
I'm good at it, I've mastered it
I've become skilled at avoiding, avoiding everything.
Avoiding, avoiding everything
But you are what you love, Tim
Your true essence is defined by what you love, Tim.
And not what loves you back
Not by what reciprocates that love.
And I'm in love with illusions
And I'm infatuated with deceptive appearances.
So saw me in half
So deceive me, trick me.
I'm in love with tricks
I'm enamored with illusions, magic tricks.
So pull another rabbit out of your hat
So surprise me again, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
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