Owl City: Fireflies Meaning

Song Released: 2009

Fireflies Lyrics

You would not believe your eyes
If ten million fireflies
Lit up the world as I fell asleep
Cause they fill the open air,
And leave teardrops everywhere,you'd think me rude but I would just stand, and stare

I'd like to make myself...

1. anonymous

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   Sep 9th 2010 !⃝

   We think it is a person who thinks that all creatures are beautiful .
2. quinn

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   Aug 29th 2010 !⃝

   When I heard this song I instantly knew exactly what it was about because It used to happen to me too. It's not about childhood innocence or some kind of imagery. It's about when you're trying to go to sleep, and you're not tired, and the lights are out and in the darkness, your eyes view what appears to be ten million fireflies as the grainy colored dots that your mind perceives in low light. The harder you try to see in the dark, the more you'll see them, and they seem to dance above your head.

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

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   Aug 18th 2010 !⃝

   Basically the guy loves sleeping and thus wants earth to spin slowly so that he doesnt have to wake up early. Cuz his dream world is beautiful. And the real life is boring.
4. anonymous

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   Aug 12th 2010 !⃝

   I think it means he's a creep who plays with toys in a dark room by himself to lure in the children and then rape them
5. anonymous

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   Jul 18th 2010 !⃝

   That's right. That's why he sings very quietly at the end, because by that time, you're already falling asleep.
6. anonymous

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   Jul 18th 2010 !⃝

   it's nothing as complicated as that. He suffers from chronic insomnia in real life. this song is supposed to be watched to after one takes sleeping pills, after you're groggy from their effect. try it and you'll see that all the lights of the toys in the video look like fireflies. the song and the video we're designed for that. it's an effect rather like those 3D paintings. on the surface, they seem like a wierd pattern, but that's because you're FOCUSED. try UNFOCUSING, and suddenly it's a picture. that's all there is to it. it's to help you fall asleep
7. anonymous

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   Jul 16th 2010 !⃝

   I think that much of the song is a lot more literal. To me it seems like, yes, he does wish to relive childhood and the simplicities of life. However, I also noticed that in the video much of the toys exemplify humanity's and earth's steps throughout time. The rocket, airship, television, train, ball dropping, dinosaurs, ball dropping (maybe referencing the ball in Time Square). I believe he's talking about the giant leaps and bounds that human kind has made throughout history.
8. anonymous

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   Jun 28th 2010 !⃝

   Okay, people. STOP TRYING TO INTERPRET THIS SONG!!!! Sure, Adam Young may have had something specific in his mind when he wrote it. But do you really think it's fair, especially for a song like Fireflies, to lay down a set of guidelines for interpretation? To say, 'Okay, when I listen to this song, THIS is what it means and nothing else?' NO!!! Fireflies means whatever you want it to mean. Whatever dreamy, unrealistic scenario you imagine when "Planet Earth turns slowly" comes on the radio, THAT is what Fireflies means. Not some stupid interpretation made up by people who probably have no idea what they are talking about.

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

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   Jun 13th 2010 !⃝

   Australia and Grade 2
   
   I read this with my grade 2 children and we can up with much the same interpretation. We believed it to be about insomnia and the simple things life, with are quite remarkable. We all loved this song and it was a perfect start to our unit of study on minibeasts.
   
   
   

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10. Mortalias

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    Jun 7th 2010 !⃝

    To me, this song represents childhood. It is inspiring us all to remain "childlike" in certain areas of life that get bogged down by pressure or stress. Young is urging us to keep our memories "in a jar" so we never forget them. As we age, we yearn for the simplistic and innocence of childhood ("I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth moves slowly"), yet at the same time we don't realize many of those simple pleasures can still be achieved.
    
    A beautiful song about life and childhood.
11. anonymous

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    Jun 7th 2010 !⃝

    you guys dont see the reality , whats wrong in the earth. the singer is just like a little kid that cant fight he rather not be here open your eyes. this song have a very important messege...
12. kels2012

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    Jun 1st 2010 !⃝

    I've wondered and thought about this particular song for a while and I've think I got it...
    I believe the speaker in the song is asking to be young again in a sense. He wants the world to go back in time and for people to have the same caring and cautious personality as they did a hundred years ago.
    "I'd like to make myself believe
    That planet Earth turns slowly
    It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
    Awake when I'm asleep
    'Cause everything is never as it seems"
    I believe that this particular part of the song means that he wishes that time would go by slower because there are so many thing out there to do and experience.
    He wishes he could be a kid again because everything was so much simpler...catching lighting bugs....
13. anonymous

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    May 23rd 2010 !⃝

    I feel that the song is basically a man who is smoking weed and it is slowing down time and space around him and the "fireflies" are the lights in the bowl or joint lighting up as he inhales, and all the fantasies are things that he is using drugs trying to escape from, and he doesn't want to go to sleep because then his high would be ended once he wakes up and he would have to experience the real world again which is what he is trying to escape from
14. anonymous

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    May 22nd 2010 !⃝

    He's talking about his sleep disorder and how when we all go to sleep, he tries but just sees light and can't.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
15. InexorableDream

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    May 20th 2010 !⃝

    I don't know this song all that well, I'm typically more into harder rock than this but I do think there is a lot of meaning in this song that needs to be looked at. "It's hard to say I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep BECAUSE everything is never as it seems when I fall asleep." I wonder if by that he means that he has dreams and he doesn't like his dreams. Or another way I look at it is that he has good dreams when he does sleep about his childhood or whatever but he still has to wake up to the reality of the world. I am not sure if I am an insomniac but I know I work third shift and could go days with no sleep at all (especially when I am taking classes full time). I am a very light sleeper and I typically would rather stay awake all day three days in a row than try to squeeze 3 hours or whatever into my schedule. Usually by day 2 I am almost in a different state of mind and I am so much more creative in my writing (I write poems) and I take advantage of that. Would I rather sleep, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
    
    As for the lines "I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly." I think that he might wish that he could still be the child that he used to be. Is that the same as I wish people in general were more like people were in the 1700s? Maybe he sees the world as I do in the sense of as people's moral values in general decrease so does the majority of the world around us. People typically would rather keep the $20 bill they find on the floor in a grocery store than to turn it in to the manager to make an announcement of missing money. People usually do not point out a cashier error when it happens in his/her favor. Some people steal things just because they can and they think that the store can afford it anyways. Maybe this song doesn't just talk about an individual person's growth from an innocent child to a corrupted adult. Maybe the whole song is one huge metaphor?

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