What does How It Ends mean?

DeVotchKa: How It Ends Meaning

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Album cover for How It Ends album cover

How It Ends Lyrics

Hold your grandmother's Bible to your breast.
Gonna put it to the test.
You want it to be blessed.
And in your heart,
You know it to be true,
You know what you gotta do.
They all depend on you.
And you already know.
Yeah, you already know...

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  1. anonymous
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     Apr 6th 2014 !⃝

    I interpreted it as a literal meaning rather than a hidden meaning.

    I can't stop looking at the line 'No escape from the slave catcher', so maybe it's about escaping and how they know it's no use but why not try because they are sick and tried of their lives as a slave.

    So in the beginning they are praying holding their grandmother's bible asking for bravery and putting God to the test by seeing if he will save you and everything like that, to help them / that person to escape from being slaves / a slave.

    And for the verse about the slave catcher, the person is sort of welcoming death, knowing he will get caught by saying he's going to escape for all his loved ones who are now gone and saying forever's not so long to wait to go to heaven or in the abyss of blackness (whatever you believe in)

    And in when line when he says it's time to go, he is finally ready to leave and try to escape.

    And in the part about the children, he is thinking about his kids and how he is doing it for them, and in the second last verse :
    'You always wanted to believe
    Just ask and you'll receive
    Beyond your wildest dreams'
    he sees the gate and is so close to getting out and being free and not being a slave anymore but then in the last verse he gets shot and dies and in those last moments he is say to himself like, you knew how it would end, you knew.

    At least that's how i see it :) i am against slavery if anyone got the wrong idea from my interpretation.

  2. anonymous
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     Jan 6th 2014 !⃝

    The song is about death ("How it ends"). This is the only certainty in life ("you already know"). "No escape from the slave catcher"

    The song is also about loss of innocence (which surrounds any true realization of what death is, and means). This is evidenced in lyrics "hold your grandmas bible", "they poked a million holes in your soul".

    It's also about faith and god "Now you've seen his face". "You already know what you gotta do" (to me this means, you already know your purpose, to love unconditionally, and to simply be, and experience life) "They all depend on you" just alludes to the pressure one feels with taking on more responsibility. "Ask and you'll receive"

    It's a very, very sad and depressing song, like many other of their songs.

    Also, It has nothing to do with gears of war but thanks for the laugh.

  3. anonymous
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     Nov 8th 2012 !⃝

    I took it as maybe being about Joan of Arc.

  4. anonymous
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     Oct 23rd 2011 !⃝

    To me it represents dom in the gears franchise, yea I know it wasn't written for gears but it serves doms character very well, he just wants to find his wife and when he does and he has to kill her it becomes a suicide mission for him, he has nothing to live for anymore so he decides he's going to kill as many of the locust even against odds that he knows he will lose and possibly die.

    But the song as a whole represents anyone who has lost everything they cared about, its like if a gang murders your family and all you want is revenge, you arm up and storm wherever they are to kill as many as you can even though you know your probably going to die and even if you don't you either get the death penalty or locked up for the rest of your life.

    It's all about facing un certainty.

  5. anonymous
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     Dec 6th 2009 !⃝

    I think about two things when I hear this song. I first heard it in the Gears of War 2 teaser trailer (which is a beautiful video; even if you don't play video games or play Gears of War, I believe a lot of people could be moved by the TV teaser. It is really powerful and this song is applied very well.)

    Link to video: http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14232680/gears-of-war-2/videos/gow2_trailer_102408.html

    So that being said/watched, I feel the song is about inevitable doom and knowing that your time is coming soon. To me it's about walking into the end with your chin up/being strong while knowing it/fighting the fear and holding back the tears.

    One day while listening to it, I had a new interpretation of this song. We were learning about the Holocaust in English class (Yeah, more in English than World Histroy; what a joke WH.) And we read a book called Night which is all from the memory of a boy who survived the genocide. So it naturally came upon me while listneing to How it Ends that it could also relate to the Holocaust. I know songs can have many if not infinite meanings depending on the listener, but I just wanted to share my thoughts.

    So what do you think?

    Link to song:
    http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/How+It+Ends/7962334


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