What does Change (In The House Of Flies) mean?

Deftones: Change (In The House Of Flies) Meaning

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Album cover for Change (In The House Of Flies) album cover

Change (In The House Of Flies) Lyrics

I've watched you change
Into a fly
I looked away
You were on fire
I watched a change
In you
It's like you never
Had wings
Now you feel
So Alive
I've watched you change
I took you home
Set you on the glass
I pulled off your...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 14th 2011 !⃝

    I read, Chino (songwriter) meant this song to metaphorically reflect upon himself as being a a++ hole to a young girl and watching her change and him regretting it in the end....i was wowed how this song can be interpreted in so many ways; from a drug addiction or drug dealers guilt, to raping the innocence of a young girl.
    From my perspective,I believe this song reflects on a lost love...a relationship he must have had with a young beautiful girl whos heart he easily stole and hurt over and over, which caused her to lose her confidence and become insecure and lose her beauty , the writer broke her down and took advantage of the fact she loved him and played her emotions..but as time went on without him noticing she changed and grew her confidence back and left him....and now he sees how happy and alive she is without him and he is regretting how he treated her, and now lost her....hes to the breaking point now that the tables turned.

    The writer first states,
    "i watched u change, in to a fly"
    Meaning he saw her change and grow wings, she was confident enough to leave now.
    He then reflects on how she use to be, innocent, insecure and naive, when he states,
    "its like u never had wings"
    "now u feel so alive"
    Meaning shes changed for the better

    When he states,
    "i took you home, pulled off your wings, and I laughed"
    He means, he made her fall for him, and during this time he played her and stripped her of the girl she use to be, and laughed because he knew he had her in the palm of his hand.

    Then at the end of the song, when he states,
    "i looked at the cross, then looked away, gave u the gun, now blow me away,"
    He means he probably was in remorse for how he treated her and knew he couldn't ask for forgiveness, so "giving her the gun" correlates with her having the upper hand now and now she hurt him.."blow me away"

    This song could have so many meanings, it is really inspirational in a morbid way..which makes it great....i also took it as a young girls journey through high school, who went through the troubles of being teased but now changed and grew and blossomed into a beautiful woman that achived her dreams......which now everybody's, blown away by... What's your interpretation?

  2. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 5th 2023 !⃝

    A collector has watched his caterpillar turn into a butterfly. The butterfly dies and he mounts it on a display board and shows it at an exhibition show. The cross refers to his mount.

  3. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 3rd 2022 !⃝

    The album is HOUSE OF FLIES.
    Not only is the song directed at two individuals, but everybody in the house of flies. You also have to consider the blown away at the end is really just being stoned to the max.
    Unless the writer of the song is hiding something that he’s keeping a secret.
    In the end…. It’s a well put together song
    that leaves us only guessing.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 11th 2021 !⃝

    Moreno: "It's a metaphorical song. You could take it in the literal sense of me watching someone turn into a fly and taking them home with me and pulling of their wings and laughing. It spawns from me being a complete a--hole and getting the complete repercussion for it by having my life taken away." - Songfacts
    Be strong Sept. 17 and Oct. 11 interpreters

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 11th 2021 !⃝

    The way I see it, he meets someone who is starting to "fly" or go down the drug / party path. He tries to take them home and lock them down probably in a relationship, but winds up making matters worse, to the point that they destroy him. That's kinda what I get out of it, maybe a little personal history skewing my interpretation of it though

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 17th 2021 !⃝

    it's comforting to me to personify life and think of this song as it's own, about how it challenges make people like me better. I spent most of my life feeling down in the worst ways whenever i was faced with a difficult problem, which felt like always, never seeing that the worst problems always makes me better and leads to happiness in more areas on my life in the end. I'm so grateful the darkest parts of my story led me to the things i have now that I love the most. i do feel alive now because of situations that i thought were killing me before, this captures that so well.

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 22nd 2020 !⃝

    I took it as our human rights being slowly taken away until there is nothing left of us anymore. I “watched the change in you”: we are no longer who we used to be and now are left lifeless and controlled by world leaders who hold all the power.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 19th 2020 !⃝

    I agree with the 1st commenter. I ve done such thing to a girl, I still feel horrible after 2.5 years, I knew he was referring to a toxic relationship from thw start...

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 30th 2019 !⃝

    This is absolutely about watching someone spiral down into a drug addiction. One person theorized that the person (not chino obvi-but the person that would be speaking) has turned someone onto drugs (turning them into this “fly”). One of the biggest things I noticed that might support this is the line “set you on the glass”...could glass be referring to meth?

  10. JoytotheLaura
    click a star to vote
    May 6th 2019 !⃝

    I agree with the prior comments about how this song can be interpreted to mean different things.

    I believe that this song describes any type of brainwashing, due to addiction, abuse, joining a cult, etc.

    When he says "it's like you never had wings", I take this to mean "you don't even remember who or how you were before I/this got a hold of you". After all, the song is written from the perspective of the one who ripped off the wings in the first place.

    I just read this somewhere else, but it makes so much sense: when he says "I look at the cross, and I look away, give you the gun, blow me away," it is an obvious admission of guilt. He is even stating that he understands if the person wanted to kill him, almost like he thinks he deserves it.

  11. anonymous
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    Feb 8th 2018 !⃝

    It is clear to me now after years hearing this, that the meaning cannot be any other but the changing that often happens on people. Do never try to interpret this by discriminating all the cords and heavy, downer tunes that are so depressing. You can't change someone really, so if you can watch - say, your girlfriend, slowly becoming an colder person instead of that sweet thing you had once and you're unable to stop it, then you get to know the meaning.

    The chorus of that music, mixing with such heretic drums and tunes so to speak, express heavily of that same impossibility. At first, the changing is subtle so you look it away. The disaster of that will soon show up as a bad decision, so I feel no regret on that music however, but the feeling of guilty.

    Also, if you see that hypothetical girlfriend becoming so bad for whatever reason, drugs maybe, then you take her home supposedly. Just to watch first hand how the changing is unstoppable. Maybe she never had her ways to change and you knew that from the start. A creepy reminder that we're so primitive, that at some point you liked the way she was by that, she looked alive after all, by doing what she does or by living the way she is - or actually changing to. But the result of this still looking like an change too different and then, you feel guilty.

    The change is so strong, that not even her love for you managed to survive that. The pain of that music comes from there. "Change" was used as the main of ''Wolf Lake'', some cancelled werewolf series where the guy's girlfriend was one of them. Try and understand that changing
    for the better is never the subject for sad musics, the changing is really bad, negative, dark. It doesn't even depends of drugs to happen exactly but psychological and then pathological signals of conditions be those syndromes or whatever. I have seen myself having that and my girlfriend at the time managed to have the way she could. But on her time, I simply couldn't.

    Without discipline, humility or good will related to your betterment, you and others will always be changing usually to the worse of you. People do change. Too much to be honest, lack of personality and our centuries problems, like losing our ''self''.

  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 19th 2015 !⃝

    My interpretation is that if you are a person who does a lot of bad things to people and to yourself, if that person thought about living his or her life different because they are tired of living that bad life. Then taking the time to say, You know what im tired of living this way day by day, im tired of letting my life consist around bad I want to do good for a change. From that decision, Waking up in the morning and looking at the man in the mirror day by day we will begin to see that change in us because of our decision to change I WATCHED YOU CHANGE, it could be talking about ourselves and our own interpretation of that song. The only reason I said this is because the person I speak on and reflect on is myself and the change I seen in myself because I took the time out to look at the man in the mirror in the morning, and from my decision to change and my decision to better myself.

  13. Blacktull9
    click a star to vote
    Aug 10th 2011 !⃝

    The beauty of songs by The Deftones are the lyrics. Any person who listens to a song like Change (In The House Of Flies) is gonna feel or think something different than the next. Its a great tune and the music video is great also ..


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