What does Kiss From a Rose mean?

Seal: Kiss From a Rose Meaning

Tagged: Kissing [suggest]
Album cover for Kiss From a Rose album cover

Song Released: 1994


Kiss From a Rose Lyrics

There used to be a graying tower alone on the sea.
You became the light on the dark side of me.
Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill.
But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and
The light that you shine...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 22nd 2016 !⃝

    "On the grey" is a strange phrase that cryptically arouses curiosity. I think the seal song is a story of a lighthouse at night. The lighthouse is the girl, the Rose is the girl,

    The beam of light reveals what can be seen and as the beam moves, where it was becomes grey and where it is going turns grey before the beam hits it. As the girl shines her light on the darkness, which is the boy, they discover parts of himself that feels strange because it was not known to him without the girl, yeah.

    "A kiss from a rose on the grey" means you can't quite see the rose yet, but when you get kissed the fragrance is strong. A man can tell the girl many things, that A rose is a mixture of power [fragrance], pleasure [petal], and pain [thorn]. And a kiss brings all three into contrast but if it is "on the grey" it is not fully realized until it is in bloom.

    The boy is all darkness where the beam shines, there is the contrast of light and dark which becomes the dark side of me, that is going to be uncovered by the girl.

    When it snows, the darkness is so complete that his iris dilates and he can see the light even brighter and also himself that she illuminates.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 2nd 2017 !⃝

    I hate when this beautiful symbolic song is not realized as it should be.

    The setting is a Medieval Castle with a protruding graying tower standing alone beyond the fortified castle walls.

    The grey, (with an e) is a term used to describe the grounds extending out from the castle walls, so named because this area is typically desolate & devoid of life except for scrub plants.

    The song begins by relating that there used to be a tower standing alone until "YOU" became the light on the dark side of "ME". This entry verse is what makes this song so great!!

    The graying Tower symbolizes man and his life's quest to find that special love which when realized is the most meaningful thing in life.

    The single rose, presenting itself by growing on the grey outside the castle in view of the graying tower, is that ultimate moment in man's life where he recognizes the light of his life, -that special woman willing to share even the most dismal of circumstances to be with him.


    This, my friends is true love. The feeling is like that of a drug, and exampled where no matter the desolate circumstances faced by man, signified by cold snow, a woman's love like the bloom of a rose shines through any gloom facing man.

    Man often struggles putting feelings into words but recognizes everything in life, his power, his pleasure & his pain, emanates from his relationship & sometimes questions not being in better control of his feelings. But in the end realizes the Kiss from a Rose illuminates all gloom.

    Think about this interpretation when you next listen to this marvelous love song.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 19th 2009 !⃝

    I just listened to this song and if you listen to the lyrics it is gray not grave. plus I seen an interview with him where he said the same thing. The whole meaning to the song without me piecing out out is that she is everything to him. Power to keep pushing forward, Pleasure to be around and with, and Pain that sometimes happens to even the best of us in a relationship. The part about the snow if you look at the rest of the song obviously means everything he has been saying. Think of the snow as metaphorical (or symbol) of his life and thoughts being clouded/ or grey. The future is hard to see. With her there she shines the light that breaks through the cloudiness and makes it possible to see a bright future ahead. Like the others said it doesn't have to do with drugs. The song does reference them but is basically putting it as " Your Love is intoxicating and better than any drug". Anyhow that is just how I feel about it. I love the song and listen to it all the time. Hope you agree with what I had to say and enjoy the song as much as I.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 5th 2022 !⃝

    Eating pussy, very clear when you hear it, the rose is the vulva kissing is him eating the vulva, and the effect on him.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 19th 2021 !⃝

    Listen. It's not about anything in particular, it's just a load of words thrown together. People over think things

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 2nd 2020 !⃝

    I think it’s about a relationship with someone having a personality disorder.
    The victim becomes addicted. she/ he feels is not healthy.
    One of them has been brainwashed
    That has lost sense of reality so there brain is foggy.
    The let’s just say it narcissism.
    The victim is addicted to his/her love pleasure and pain and can’t see there reason for all this. The victim because aware of the problem and turns in to the rose.
    Revenge.
    Can any Body relate to being in a toxic relationship?.

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 25th 2020 !⃝

    Can we listen to a great song without trying to take it apart? Goo goo cachoo....

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

    Um, guys,

    meaning all 7 billion other people out there.

    This song is about masturbation.

    Think about it.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 18th 2019 !⃝

    This is a song about cocaine

  10. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 13th 2018 !⃝

    You've become a person who thought they were incapable of love, and being loved. And suddenly you feel the warmth of it like you never thought you would ever feel again. You quit some of your old ways such as smoking drinking or drugs, change, try as you may, the love ends. But you see why you should be grateful for love lending its warmth back into your life. A beautiful love that ended abruptly, nonetheless you carry it with you for it ever even happening. So now, when you feel love, you don't hide from it any longer and embrace any bit that comes your way.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 2nd 2018 !⃝

    The emotion that the song portrays is pleading for love's suffering sweetness the lyrics on the whole are secondary.

  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 15th 2018 !⃝

    People he's talking about a woman and also his cocaine addiction, and his struggles with it. He wants to kick the habit but it's a tough thing for him because it's bittersweet. It's that gray area that drug addicts deal with. This one classic line gives it away. It's plain as day.

    "Don't you know, when it snows, my eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen"

    Another name for cocaine is snow. When when he says "snows" it means these is lots of cocaine. "My eyes become large"
    When people take a huge hit cocaine, the immediate reaction is that theie eyes pop open very wide.
    And the last part, " the light that you ( the cocaine) shines can be seen"

    Think about this as the effects of drugs in general. When you snort cocaine, It feels like it expands your mind. Things seem clearer to you, make you more aware. "The light" metaphorically means awareness, consciousness , and clarity. So when he snorts cocaine the effects of it makes him feel that way. The "light" (effects) that Cocaine can finally be seen once you snort it.

    The other classic line is very obvious.
    " the more I get of you the stranger it feels"
    Classic case of drug use. The more you use the stranger you will feel.

    Oh, and the line about getting hug and not being a pill. Well, cocaine isn't a pill!

  13. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 27th 2018 !⃝

    The girl is going to have a baby.

  14. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 18th 2018 !⃝

    The colors that Seal refers to are the grey and the white (snow). Love comes when we least expect it and sometimes when we think we are done with it. The singer was alone and depressed like a castle on the sea. A rose approached him and kissed him. The kiss could have hurt him because of the possible thorns, but no, it was like a drug with only the beauty of it and not the downfall (only the high and not the pill). But did you know when it snows my eyes become large and the light that you shine can't be seen? You know when my life is happy and bright, my eyes become large, unable to focus and appreciate YOU? So I love my grey, because my grey helps me appreciate you light which otherwise I would't have realized that you shine...

  15. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 29th 2018 !⃝

    My first impression was possibly about a young girl becoming a woman, where her rose is in bloom, I believe there are even a few lines of advise about men.

  16. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 19th 2018 !⃝

    this song is full of double meanings. And because of this, the lyric gives us
    calm and beautiful, yet dark and ominous, lonely, dengerous and sensual impression at the same time.
    two people is in this story; the singer and his girl.
    the singer is easy to be depressed, distrustful of happines or pureness,
    and perhaps with an unhappy and dangerous background (like drug abuse).
    the girl is perhaps a pure, cheerful, healing and attractive person with wholehearted unconditional love.
    this lucky guy seems to be agonized by something. let's see what it is.

    this song begins with something like a line from an old fairy tale.
    this gives us the impression as if this tale is about someone at somewhere: not his recent situation.
    trying not to be distorted by emotion or personal bias; just discribing poetically and objectively.

    "There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea"
    what a solitary picture this line gives us! he must have been depressed, lonely and confused, but calm back then.
    Usualy this kind of building(a tower alone on the sea) is a lighthouse, but it's lighted by his girl.
    I think this is a form of rhetoric; irony.
    (we can't see the meaning of "greying" or "the gray" till we read the whole lyric)

    "You became the light on the dark side of me"
    She saved him from depression, cheered him up or let him forget the sad past.

    "Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill"
    love remain"ed" to be a drug: this means love gave him a pure rapture, without the other aspects that the pill gives.
    (there was no side effects back then).
    It's the past tense. in fairytales It's natural to end the story with a line like
    because everyone in the story is supposed to be dead. but in this song the man is still alive.
    this implies the love begun to take a subtly different direction. in a nut shell later the side effect begun to turn out.
    I will explain later.

    "But did you know that when it snows"
    "snows" could mean various things. Choose whatever you like from the list below.(my choice is No.4)
    1.snow falls
    2.to cover the dirty part with pure and innocent things, to decieve someone by pretending innocent
    3.to astonish someone and make his brain white out, to make someone speechless
    4.some verb related to cocain.(since in this song drug is used as a metapher of love,this might be reffering to the side effect of love)


    "My eyes become large and the light that you shine can't be seen"
    His eyes(or iris) become wide open (from the side effect) and he can't see the devine light she throws
    Usualy if you want to see something clearly, you might open your eyes larger.
    but he says he can't see it because his eyes become large. this is another carefully chosen ironic words.


    "Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey"
    we can't see what "the grey" is, except it's a part of him to kiss on.
    and it's not something like lips or cheek,
    "the grey" would be something like his back or underarm or sole and so on; somewhere sensitive
    and somewhere he hadn't been kissed before he met her.
    Only, it's not on his body. it's a metapher of a dark part of his mind.
    "the grey" is a perfect contrast to jolly beautiful "rose".
    so he is saying
    she is like a rose's kiss on his sensitive part.

    "Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah"
    when he gets many of such kisses,he feels awkword and strange.
    yea I see it tickles.

    "Now that your rose is in bloom"
    Once she uses her power in full play
    (Could this be taken with sexual connotation?)

    "A light hits the gloom on the grey"
    it clears the fog off of his mind.
    the grey seems to mean the dark side of his mind.
    mixture of anxiety and confusion and lonliness and something even he couldn't understand.
    the color grey is mixture of white and black; caos of right and wrong.

    "There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say"
    a man would compliment you a lot.
    the point is the singer's saying "a" man; any man; a helthy minded normal man can tell you so much
    that means the next line is said by other guys around her not by the singer

    "You remain my power, my pleasure, my pain"
    she loves the singer. naturally others are looser.
    still they would say these things.(she remains their pain because it's a hopeless love)

    "Baby, to me, you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny"
    but to the singer she's like a side effect of cocain; addiction.
    to love someone deeply grows the fear of losing her.
    he is begining to fear whether his heart could endure losing her, feeling there is no turning back.

    "Won't you tell me, is that healthy, baby?"
    is that natural? am I still sane? tell me.

  17. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 24th 2018 !⃝

    Some of the most beautiful lyrics that I've ever heard. I have read almost everyone's comments, and I agree with 90 percent of you. I can see almost all of these interpretations for this song.

  18. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 11th 2018 !⃝

    All about cunalingus.

‹ prev 12345



More Seal songs »


 


Latest Articles

 


Submit Your Interpretation

[ want a different song? ]