This Is the Last Time by The National Lyrics Meaning – Unraveling the Emotional Tapestry of Love and Loss
Lyrics
Like a hundred times yourself
I wish everybody knew
What’s so great about you
Oh, but your love is such a swamp
You don’t think before you jump
And I said I wouldn’t get sucked in, ah
This is the last time
Oh, don’t tell anyone I’m here
I got Tylenol and beer
I was thinking that you’d call somebody
Closer to you
Oh, but your love is such a swamp
You’re the only thing I want
And I said I wouldn’t cry about it, ah
This is the last time
This is the last time
We were so under the brine
We were so vacant and kind
We were so under the brine
We were so vacant
We were so under the brine
We were so out of our minds
We were so under the brine
We were so vacant
Oh, when I lift you up you feel
Like a hundred times yourself
I wish everybody knew
What’s so great about you
Oh, but your love is such a swamp
You don’t think before you jump
And I said I wouldn’t get sucked in, ah
I won’t be vacant anymore
I won’t be waitin’ anymore
I won’t be vacant anymore
I won’t be waitin’ anymore
I won’t be vacant anymore
I won’t be waitin’ anymore
I won’t be vacant anymore
I won’t be waitin’ anymore
Jenny, I am in trouble
Can’t get these thoughts out of me
Jenny, I’m seeing double
I know this changes everything (it takes a lot of pain)
Jenny, I am in trouble
Can’t get these thoughts out of me to (pick me up)
Jenny, I’m seeing double (it takes a lot of rain)
I know this changes everything (in my cup)
It takes a lot of pain to pick me up
It takes a lot of rain in my cup
It takes a lot of pain
Baby, you gave me bad ideas
Baby, you left me sad and high
In the fabric of contemporary alternative rock, The National has embroidered a niche for themselves with their deeply resonant and emotionally charged lyrics. ‘This Is the Last Time,’ a track from their 2013 album ‘Trouble Will Find Me,’ seems to capture the essence of this sentiment with a haunting precision. The song’s melodic undercurrents buoy the weighty subject of love’s complexities and the human condition’s attachment to it.
Navigating through the lyrics of ‘This Is the Last Time,’ one encounters a landscape drenched in melancholy and the contradictory nature of love—its enveloping warmth and its mire of desperation. What surfaces is a multilayered narrative that dwells on enduring themes such as longing, denial, self-awareness, and the irreversible nature of change.
Echoes of Elevation: The Metaphor of Weightlessness in Love
The song initiates with a powerful image: lifting someone up so that they feel ‘like a hundred times themselves.’ It’s an evocative portrayal of elevation, characteristic of new or rekindled love’s capacity to magnify identity and self-worth. In this process, the sharer of this love wishes others could see the object of affection with the same depth and adoration that they do, adding an element of unsung glory to the equation.
Yet, this buoyancy carries with it an undertow of apprehension—a sense that such heights are temporary or, perhaps worse, illusory. The duality of love’s lift and the fall that might follow tread softly throughout the lyrics, presenting the listener with a rhythmic pendulum swinging between elation and a foreboding sense of caution.
Swamped by Affection: Understanding the Song’s Water Imagery
References to water in ‘This Is the Last Time’ saturate the lyrics with an imagery of being enveloped and overwhelmed. Describing love as ‘such a swamp,’ the song highlights the all-consuming nature of emotions, blurring the lines between passion and entrapment. Water here is not only a nurturing force but also a potential hazard, leaving one consumed by the swamps of affection.
This aquatic motif intensifies with words like ‘under the brine,’ which evoke a sense of suffocation and the loss of one’s sense of self to the ensnaring hand of deep-seated love. It captures the paradox of wanting to be submerged in the very thing that one might drown in, alluding to the painful pleasures found in the depths of intimacy and vulnerability.
The Moment of Reckoning: A Cry Named Jenny
Late within ‘This Is the Last Time,’ an unexpected shift turns the abstract meditations on love into a visceral plea involving a character named Jenny. Suddenly, love becomes personified, and these moments reveal a more narrative-driven source of distress. Jenny embodies the concert of love, longing, pain, and the very tangible human experiences tied to these sentiments.
There is a rawness to this confession—of being in trouble, seeing double, acknowledging how ‘this changes everything.’ It is the unraveling of the speaker, an admittance of vulnerability in front of a feeling too powerful to shake off. Within these lines, the name Jenny represents both the concrete and the symbolic, a touchstone of love’s real-world impact and its echoing disturbances in the psyche.
Farewell to the Vacant Heart: A Pledge to Presence
A resolute refrain rings through the second half of ‘This Is the Last Time’: ‘I won’t be vacant anymore.’ It signals a turning point, a commitment to emotional engagement and presence after a period of detachment or passivity. The narrative voice acknowledges the emptiness of being ‘vacant’ and ‘waiting,’ perhaps echoing the inertia faced when entangled in ambivalent feelings.
Essentially, the refrain is a battle cry for self-assertion, a shedding of complacency in matters of the heart. In this sense, it takes on an empowering tone, an almost anthemic quality that encourages both the speaker and the listener to embrace the transformative powers of proactive involvement in their emotional journey.
The Culpability of Cupid’s Poison: The Toxicity in Love’s Labyrinth
As the song draws to its quietus, it leaves the listener entwined in the gnarled roots of love’s tentative bliss and sorrow. ‘Baby, you gave me bad ideas’ is a haunting echo that speaks volumes of love’s potential to lead one astray, to intoxicate with visions that don’t always align with reality.
Such lines underscore the complexities of relationships, the accidental harms inflicted, and the bittersweet nature of recognizing that one can be ‘left sad and high’ by the same token that promised joy. The song concludes not with answers, but with an acknowledgment of love’s dualities and the arduous road it maps out—fraught with happiness, hardships, and the essential pain that growth demands.
