What does Burn The House Down mean?

AJR: Burn The House Down Meaning

Album cover for Burn The House Down album cover

Song Released: 2018


Burn The House Down Lyrics

Used to keep it cool
Used to be a fool
All about the bounce in my step
Watch it on the news
Whatcha gonna do?
I could hit refresh and forget
Used to keep it cool
Should I keep it light?
Stay out of the fight?
No one's gonna listen to...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Dec 14th 2020 !⃝

    AJR has already acknowledged this as a political song(search the article yourself).

    It's about the current government suppressing the truth and covering it with lies. The song is them wondering whether they should speak out about this injustice.

    By the chorus they have decided not to just ignore and forget the things around them and sing the truth.

    The song revolves around the idea of whether we should lie low or stand up and speak for ourselves. There's no debate.

    Though I guess other people comparing it to the music industry is sort of impressive, it still is kind of forced the throat.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    May 25th 2019 !⃝

    I think it’s a reference to I’m not famous in a way. They’re not famous so why are they in the business of “beggars and thieves” . And also since they are so famous they have to keep it light, listen to what people have to say rather than what they want to say.But this song is about burning that idea down, they’re are getting famous and going up without having to go through what everyone else did. Serving lies is about how famous people tell you follow your dreams and you’ll be like them but that’s not how you get famous. They’ve been down that road of lies and regrets. Keeping it light is just ignoring corruption in everything. It’s about how people don’t want to hear politics from a singers mouth. The tricks up your sleeve is just being flashy. When they talk about Twitter burning the whole house down it’s about how social media is a tank of sharks, they smell blood and frenzy. Burning the house down is about destroying the corruption. Or it could be like poker, where you win by serving lies, and the house wins if you cheat. No house no cheating

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Feb 4th 2020 !⃝

    its about how people aren't allowed to speak up anymore, because if they do all their ideas will get burned down by the other people.

  4. anonymous
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    May 28th 2022 !⃝

    My personal interpretation is that its about rebeling against the government. 1. "If I right a song, preaching whats is wrong will anyone listen to me? Will they let me sing om TV?"-A man considering to rebel but wondering if people will hear him and wondering if the gov will hate him.2. "We're gonna burn the whole house down!"-Plotting to take down the government. 3. "You're only serving lies, you've got something to hide"-A man convinced the1 government is lying. Im to lazy to give more evidence that concludes my TedTalk.

  5. anonymous
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    Mar 10th 2022 !⃝

    yes, very good. now i need to use 100 characters to submit. here it is hope its good enough. Well this is it i guess.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  6. anonymous
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    Apr 5th 2021 !⃝

    everyone wants to be famous! but when beginers try to have fame, its mainly going to be hard, but they say there's more than one way to be famous!

  7. anonymous
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    Nov 10th 2020 !⃝

    It is simply a metaphor for anyone who was submissive and obedient in the past.
    Now things have gone bad and the submissive person knows all of the others dirty little secrets.
    Could be anything. A divorce comes to mind.
    The house could be the house of cards the other person has built.
    Or, possibly, the " pull " the other person has with a corrupt, local divorce court and it's employees.
    In any case it is about stating things that the other person would like kept quiet.
    Entertainers and thieves, could be that the court is a mere circus and the thieves are the attorney's.
    Turning to Twitter as an alternative gets the message out to more people than imaginable. And thus, drives the message home to everyone. The other person is outed.
    Way up way up, could be over the authority of the judge to silence him or her.
    And we are going to burn
    ( bring ) the whole house, down.
    Each connected, corrupt, biased, one of them.
    It is a metaphor. Yep
    That is for sure.

  8. anonymous
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    Oct 15th 2020 !⃝

    I think way up we go means going up on the charts with real music losing all the fake people who are faking their music.

  9. anonymous
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    Oct 15th 2020 !⃝

    I think they are refering to how the entertainment facilities are all fake with magic shows and cgi and they are trying to keep the entertainment real and they are trying to break away from the normal industries "burning the house down" trying to make a new roof of entertianment that is legit without autotune or hiding your voice or downloading beats just making real music and real music because of you do that it feels a lot better when you hit the charts with a song you actualy made.

  10. anonymous
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    Jun 6th 2020 !⃝

    I think (as many others have said) it is mainly about injustice. I think it is him (or the band) coming to the realization that maybe trying to fix something that’s corrupt (inside the house) we should just burn the whole house down, and start over. Build from the bottom up, even if some things in the house are good. If you think about it, it can make sense in terms of our government, there are a lot of really good things about our government, but also really bad things, and you can only fix those bad things from redesigning the good things. Not sure if that make any sense to anyone. The part where they say that every stranger on twitter is gonna burn this down, I don’t think they mean twitter is gonna help them or agree, but I think they mean that everyone is gonna basically shoot down their idea. If you have watched their music video you will also notice they show people rioting with torches and what appears to be a torn up city. I also notices early in the song he says “should i keep it light, stay out of the fight, no ones gonna listen to me” I think this is kind of saying “should I help out here and there, but not attract anyone’s attention” but as he’s saying that he’s realizing nobody will listen to him. I think for AJR, they wrote this song with their experience of people in the music industry, but i believe they decided to make it a bit more broad so that it can relate to more things (like the government). To me it’s quite important that they decided to use the word “whole” when referencing the whole house. I think this is important to pay attention to because it creates a relative scale. By saying “whole” they are basically saying the the house is everything they are talking about, rather than it being referenced on a scale of 1 house in a city, it’s referenced as a WHOLE house. This house has everything, but let’s just burn it down. Hope this helps anyone who finds it

  11. anonymous
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    May 14th 2020 !⃝

    I think that it might be about injustice. If you listen to the lines carefully, you can hear phrases like, “If I write a song, preaching what is wrong, will they let me sing on TV?” Which might be referencing how people who preach about what is inherently wrong will not be believed and will be ridiculed. It also says, “Watch me stand in the line, you’re only serving lies, you’ve got something to hide.” It might be talking about how our (America’s) current political leader is lying to us to cover up something. I feel that this song is mainly about injustice and wrongdoing going on involving politics. Sorry if I got it wrong!

  12. anonymous
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    Apr 14th 2020 !⃝

    I think that the song is about corruption. Part of the song talks about a room of entertainers and theves and I think that both if the adjetives are used to describe the people inside. I think that the singer knows and is conflicted about weither they should tell people or not. Hence the part of the song something close to "should I bite my tongue?" I think that they decide to tell and "burn the whole house down." Sorry about the spelling and grammer. I am typing this on a kindle. BTW I think thatt villian deku videos that use this song are awsome!

  13. anonymous
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    Oct 15th 2019 !⃝

    Appears to be a democratic song. A song for current democrats. Too bad, I thought it was a good song. Love the rhythm, I dislike the Democratic taste to it though.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  14. anonymous
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    Aug 13th 2019 !⃝

    I know that it’s released in 2018 but it maybe about Area 51

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  15. anonymous
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    Jul 24th 2019 !⃝

    I think it's about how the singer's been sitting idly by as bad stuff happened in the world around him. But now he can't just do nothing anymore.

  16. anonymous
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    Jul 20th 2019 !⃝

    Well.. Going deeper, it could mean burning down (shedding light) on all the lies and deceit we have been under all this time on Planet Earth. "If I write a song preaching what is wrong will they let me play on TV".. They meaning those who are in charge and running almost everything. Its time to Energetically burn the house of lies and negativity and move higher vibrationally.. :)

  17. anonymous
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    May 6th 2019 !⃝

    It is about getting high and using drugs. From ‘how light’ to ‘way up way up we go’, it is a song about drugs and addiction

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  18. walyc
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    May 5th 2019 !⃝

    Burn The House Down, it's the White House. All the lies bullshit coming out of it. They want to march with the protesters and watching all the shit on TV about "Trump" That's what it means. It's a protest song.

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