Florence + the Machine: Dog Days Are Over Meaning

Song Released: 2008

Covered By: Glee Cast

Dog Days Are Over Lyrics

Happiness / hit her / like a train on a tra-ck
Coming towards her / stuck still / no turning ba-ck
She hid around corners / and she hid under beds /
She killed it with kisses and from it she fl-ed /
With e-very bubble she sank with a drink...

1. anonymous

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   May 30th 2016 !⃝

   Hearing this song for the first time, my immediate thought was, "What could this song actually be about?" My first reaction was that she is establishing that she is going to be happy. And delving into the lyrics further, I think this song may be overthought by a lot of people.
   "Happiness, hit her like a train on a track," and "Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back," are just used to describe the fact that all of a sudden she was happy, and how quick it all happened. I think there is the possibility of the song being about overcoming depression. Sometimes I think being happy is about deciding to be happy, and I think that's what this song is about, deciding to be happy for one's own sake.
   "Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father... leave all your love and your longing behind you can't carry it with you if you want to survive," are the most difficult lyrics to match up with the rest of the song in my opinion. To be honest, my first thought was about how in the Buddhist religion (I am Lutheran christian) one must give up their wordly desires to be happy. Looking at it again, I think that it really just means you have to accept that not everything is going to go your way in life and you can't let little downfalls get you down because you know they'll happen anyway because hey, that's life.
   I think the first verse accurately describes her struggle to accept happiness into her life by letting go of her mind. "She killed it with kisses and from it she fled" refers to her lack of realization on how to find happiness by purposefully running away from something good.
   This song is quite a tough one to interpret and I think there are definitely many, many possiblle interpretations and I respect them all equally, this is just my personal interpretation and how I listen to it when I hear the song. I definitely think that regardless of the specific interpretation that it is in fact a happy song and talking about being happy and feeling good.
2. anonymous

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   May 25th 2016 !⃝

   The song is about overcoming abuse. Realizing you have to leave them and the hurt behind you to move on.
   
   "Struck from a great height, By someone who should know better than that"
3. anonymous

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   May 6th 2016 !⃝

   I think it is about her experiencing life after death. The lines, "Happiness hit her like a train on a track","happiness hit her like a bullet in the back", and "with every bubble she sank with her drink" are all ways of dying (Train suicide, shot by a gun, and drowning). When she says the dog days are over, she is claiming that there are no troubles in heaven. She also says, "leave all your love and your longing behind," which ties in with no worries or regrets after dying from the the things that killed her.
4. anonymous

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   Mar 21st 2016 !⃝

   I think the song is about a woman who is in a relationship with a man and later on gets tired by there relationship and cheats on the man she is currently in a relationship with and is happy with the new man she is in a secret relationship with and the first man she is in a relationship with finds out and he tries to kill the woman so she runs and hides from him so she has to leave her family and love behind so she can survive.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
5. anonymous

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   Mar 4th 2016 !⃝

   I thoughtit was about the Holocaust. Anne Frank and stuff. Hiding from the
   Germans .

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. anonymous

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   Jan 10th 2016 !⃝

   This song, in my opinion (and it's just that, an opinion) is about slavery.
   "Happiness
   Hit her
   Like a train on a track"
   Well, this part is about a single slave - a girl, who finally reached land and saw her family again.
   
   "Coming towards her,
   Stock still no turning back"
   This is when a plantation owner or slave buyer approaches her and has bought her. She is stuck still in fright and in shock. She doesn't understand what is going on at all, only that she should hide. "She hid around corners and she hid under beds" proves this.
   
   "She killed it with kisses and from it she fled" this part gets tricky to link to my theory. I think she fell in love with another slave who was living on the plantation but she knows if she wants to escape and see her family she can't have any ties. He got punished for being with her, "killed it with kisses" and she fled from him in fear of roots and ties.
   
   "With every bubble she sank with a drink
   And washed it away down the kitchen sink"
   She became thirsty and dehydrated from work. She realized how much water was wasted as she washed dishes, and bathed the children. This is loosely interpreted but eh, it's 12:41 in the morning.
   
   "The dog days are over
   The dog days are done
   The horses are coming
   So you better run"
   The dog days are the days where they had it easy. When they weren't treated as poorly. Before the major slave revolts. Before punishments got extremely inhumane. The horses bring cavalry in the army - the cavalry is coming and it won't be good for anyone still there when the cavalry arrives.
   
   "Run fast for your mother
   Run fast for your father
   Run for your children
   For your sisters and your brothers"
   All of the slaves she's known are considered family. She's running for all of them.
   
   "Leave all your love
   And your longing behind
   You can't carry it with you
   If you want to survive"
   Leave your loved ones. Run with no regrets.
   
   "And I never wanted anything from you
   Except everything you ever had and
   What was left after that too oh"
   The slave owners wanted every last minute of work from their slaves.
   
   "Happiness
   Hit her
   Like a bullet in the back
   Strung from a
   Great height
   From someone who knows better than that"
   
   She was so happy to see her family in the beginning, and then she fell in love. Her happiness was taken away just like life taken from someone who was shot. I think the bullet is a whip, someone standing over her from a great height who knows better than slavery but does it anyway.
   
   At the end, she's revisiting old memories after escaping her plantation.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
7. anonymous

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   Jan 8th 2016 !⃝

   I believe this song is about dealing with bipolar disorder.
8. anonymous

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   Dec 23rd 2015 !⃝

   I think this song is about the bad days being over and the person feels afraid of letting herself be happy after feeling depressed for a very long time, maybe because of possible dissapointment.
9. anonymous

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   Apr 27th 2015 !⃝

   This song is about alcohol addiction. The song starts out where she fuels her addiction by drinking "Happiness hit her like a train on a track Coming towards her stuck still no turning back" this shows her addiction is very bad."She hid around corners and she hid under beds. She killed it with kisses and from it she fled. With every bubble she sank with her drink. And washed it away down the kitchen sink." Then she tried to stop this addiction by abstinence and removing her alcohol.
   "The dog days are over
   The dog days are done
   The horses are coming
   So you better run"
   This part of the song is saying the euphoria from alcohol is over and now she has a horrible urge to relapse so she must run form this feeling. Then it talks about running for her family and friends which means they all want her to get sober. SO yeah basically alcohol addiction
10. burayan

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    Mar 20th 2015 !⃝

    This song is about a horse-apocalypse. She wrote it about this dream she had, where dogs were ruling the universe. It was peaceful during the dogs days and all was plenty till the horses became wary of their place and decided to take over. I called her (yes, we used to be neighbours with florence) and this is what she said, "I wonder why people try to find a deeper meaning beyond the most obvious. It was about this dream I had..." Then she proceeded to tell me the tale I just mentioned.
11. anonymous

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    Jan 1st 2015 !⃝

    Hi! This song is not about domestic abuse. I found in http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=16236 the following information:
    This paean to the inevitability of happiness was inspired by a giant text installation (of the same name) by the artist Ugo Rondinone, which Welch used to see every day riding her bike over Waterloo Bridge. Florence told Mojo magazine April 2012 about the rainbow-hued text: "It was plastered over the south Bank in London for six months and I rode past it on my bike every day. It's a reference to the dog star, Sirius: when it was closest to the Earth, all the animals would get languid and sleepy; when it moved away, they'd wake up. I've tried to get in touch with him to say thanks."
    So according to that text, which I'm not sure if it's correct, "the dog days" are the sleepy days. It's just another perspective.
12. anonymous

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    Dec 3rd 2014 !⃝

    This song is about the apocalypse.
    
    The phrase "dog days" refers to the sultry days of summer.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_days
    i.e. The end of bright days, the end of happiness.
    
    "The horses are coming so you better run"
    Refers to the four horsemen.
    
    This is NOT a love song or an abusive relationship, but I can see how it can be interpreted that way -and everyone has the right to their interpretation. However, I see this song as more of an esoteric dramatization and Florence's own interpretation of the apocalypse... it's more of an Epic Narrative. It's a song that tells a story. Not all songs are about love.
13. anonymous

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    Nov 1st 2014 !⃝

    I think it's about a relationship, abusive or just unrequited. I can see the biblical associations, but the part about "killed it with kisses" and "all I ever wanted from you was everything you had," implies that she was/is in love but doesn't get love back from the person. She decides it's better for herself and her family if she moves on from being in love, because although she was happy at first, when she realized her love was not requited, she was no longer happy (dog days are over), and now she will run free from her abuser (or someone who just doesn't love her) like a horse. Horses are known to run from owners who either abuse them or just don't really seem to care about them--it's an instinct.
14. anonymous

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    Aug 28th 2014 !⃝

    I heard she wrote it about becoming a vegetarian and not eating hot dogs anymore. Seriously.
15. anonymous

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    Aug 3rd 2014 !⃝

    To me, it's a freedom song about not allowing yourself to became a loyal servant to someone who saved you once.
    
    You should be thankful to person who saved you, but do not allow yourself to become a minion (unless you want to live as a simpleton).

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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