Rainbow Veins by Owl City Lyrics Meaning – A Dive into the Spectrum of Human Emotion


You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Owl City's Rainbow Veins at Lyrics.org.
Article Contents:
  1. Music Video
  2. Lyrics
  3. Song Meaning

Lyrics

High rise, veins of the avenue
Bright eyes and subtle variations of blue
Everywhere is balanced there like a rainbow above you

Street lights glisten on the boulevard
And cold nights make staying alert so hard
For heaven’s sake, keep me awake so I won’t be caught off guard
Clearly I am a passerby but I’ll find a place to stay
Dear pacific day, won’t you take me away?

Small town hearts of the New Year
Brought down by gravity, crystal clear
City fog and brave dialogue converge on the frontier

Make haste, I feel your heartbeat
With new taste for speed, out on the street
Find a road to a humble abode where both of our routes meet
The silver sound is all around and the colors fall like snow
The feeling of letting go, I guess we’ll never know

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I’ll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins
Cause your heart has a lack of color and we should’ve known
That we’d grow up sooner or later cause we wasted all our free time alone

Your nerves gather with the altitude
Exhale the stress so you don’t come unglued
Somewhere there is a happy affair, a ghost of a good mood
Wide eyed, panic on the getaway
The high tide could take me so far away
VCR’s and motorcars unite on the Seventh Day
A popular gauge will measure the rage of the new Post-Modern Age
Cause somewhere along the line all the decades align

We were the crashing whitecaps
On the ocean
And what lovely seaside holiday, away
A palm tree in Christmas lights
My emotion
Struck a sparkling tone like a xylophone
As we spent the day alone

Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains
And I’ll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins
Cause your heart has a lack of color and we should’ve known
That we’d grow up sooner or later ’cause we wasted all our free time alone

Full Lyrics

Owl City’s ethereal synth-pop sound carries with it not just an escape into dreamy soundscapes but often a depth that is easy to overlook upon first listen. ‘Rainbow Veins’ is one such auditory journey, couched within the artist’s signature otherworldly glow, and dissecting the layers reveals a profound contemplation on life, growth, and the colors of human emotion.

Adam Young, the mastermind behind Owl City, has always had a talent for painting vivid imagery with his music, and ‘Rainbow Veins’ is a masterpiece swirling with pastel hues and existential nuances. The song, a blend of upbeat tones and melancholic lyrics, offers a poignant message that resonates with listeners trying to make sense of the world and their place in it.

Illuminating the Intricacies of Owl City’s Luminous Landscape

The opener of ‘Rainbow Veins’ sets the stage for what feels like a cosmic ballet, with vivid ‘high rise, veins of the avenue’ crafting an expansive visual canvas. Yet, it’s the ‘subtle variations of blue’ that hint at a deeper exploration of emotion and the complexity behind seemingly simple experiences.

An essence of balance pervades these opening lines, proposing that within the chaos of life’s grand design, there is an equilibrium to be found—a rainbow above the storm clouds of everyday life. The imagery deployed by Young is at once fantastical and grounded, bridging daydreams with the streets we walk.

A Chronical of Chromatic Heartbeats and Hasty Retreats

‘Make haste, I feel your heartbeat’ propels the song into a rhythmic pulse, a metaphor for the urgency with which we often experience life. There’s movement here, not just in the beat but in the progression of life itself. The song speaks to the fleeting nature of moments and the need to find common ground in the trajectories of our distinct journeys.

This haste is met with ‘a humble abode where both of our routes meet,’ a grounding sentiment that speaks to connection. Amid the accelerating pace of existence, Owl City finds solace in convergence—a place where the rapidity of life’s race can pause for companionship and shared solace.

Discovering ‘Rainbow Veins’: The Song’s Hidden Meaning

The euphoria of the song’s chorus, ‘I’ll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins,’ captures a desire to infuse life with color and vitality. This is more than poetic imagery—it’s about injecting hope into someone who has faded into the grayscale of daily struggles.

The ‘lack of color’ in one’s heart speaks to depression or ennui, a common human condition. The imagery suggests a reinvigoration of spirit, connecting the ethereal to the visceral by promising to fill the figurative veins with a spectrum that promises joy and vibrancy in the midst of monochrome melancholy.

The Sonic Alchemy of Nostalgia and Modernity

‘A popular gauge will measure the rage of the new Post-Modern Age’ hints at a generational pulse check, pitting technicolor nostalgia against contemporary disaffection. The song juxtaposes ‘VCR’s and motorcars’ with an existential crisis, encapsulating the tension between progress and a yearning for the past.

As the lyrics flit between an ode to bygone days and an embrace of the now, the song molds time as if it were clay, morphing ‘all the decades’ into a single, coherent timeline, capturing the essence of history’s cyclical nature and the universal search for meaning.

Unforgettable Lines That Paint With All the Colors of Emotion

‘The feeling of letting go, I guess we’ll never know,’ touches on the human condition’s most poignant moment—release. It’s a line shrouded in mystery and an acceptance of not knowing, an admittance that despite our quest to understand, some aspects of life, like the feeling of true release, may forever elude us.

This surrender to the unknown beautifully segues into the visceral imagery of ‘crashing whitecaps on the ocean.’ Here, Owl City captures the tumultuous but inherently beautiful essence of human emotion and life’s dynamism, resonating with the part of us that finds peace amidst the chaos.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may also like...