Sarah McLachlan: Angel Meaning

Song Released: 1998

Angel Lyrics

You spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it ok
There's always some reason to feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction oh beautiful release
Memories seep from...

1.  

   anonymous

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   Jun 29th, 6:28am report

   
   

   this song is beautiful and needs no interpretation. You feel what the song says to you, dont over complicate it. i know what it says to me and therefore i do not need to interpret something that speaks loud and plain enough

   
   
   
   

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   anonymous

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   Nov 2nd, 2016 11:52am report

   
   

   Sad sad song. Secret sorrows. Can we get by with a little help from our friends

   
   
   
   

3.  

   kooljohn176

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   Jun 21st, 2016 6:38pm report

   
   

   One of the most beautiful and soulful enduring songs for the soul to escape ''In the arms of the Angel'' sung by SARAH McLachlan written and inspired during a time when she and we lost a known musician to a accidental heroin death overdose that I've heard with sorrow. Also on the overall with a known personal experience this song sounds and feels that the soul is going through the ''walk-in'' transformation experience for the Reciever to ''try-on'' this new soul. Usually this takes place in the times when The Reciever is in severe depression, feeling fatigue and tired during the illness, like during times of culture and emotional shock, or certaintly when in a coma, The Personality sometimes receives a new soul in the exchange. For instance, this can take place when the person you love dearly ''accidently commits suicide'' by heroin or whatever, this can be very painful for the loved one to let go of him or her. Then one day you meet someone raised around the same area that went through the ''dark night of the soul'' sort of speaking around the same time when your loved one passed away and the soul departed. Where now the soul[giver] and the Reciever that has been very ill, thinking that is losing the original soul that could've had this soul exchange between themselves, but usually it is never known what's really happening, unless the person is very intuitive and perseptive of how in the arms of the Angel the soul is brought back to the loved one or to be taken back to Heaven and God.

   
   
   
   

4.  

   anonymous

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   Apr 25th, 2015 4:27am report

   
   

   The song is about suicide. In the beginning it talks about waiting for your live to get better, but you are not good enough, you suck at life and no matter how hard you try you fail. You need to be released from the world. All the memories of failure are leaving from the veins in your wrists that you slit till it's empty of blood. You are pull from the wreckage of your miserable life and you feel like you are now floating drifting out of consciousness hallucinating angels taking you away.

   
   
   
   

5.  

   anonymous

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   Jan 8th, 2015 1:59pm report

   
   

   So sad, to me its when you are feeling hopeless, and no one cares, angels would comfort you if you died

   
   
   
   

6.  

   anonymous

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   Jul 23rd, 2014 7:44pm report

   
   

   I suppose the idea behind a site like this is to draw some of your own conclusions to a song's meaning and while I am not Sarah McLachlan, I do have an interpretation that may strike a chord with some people. I listen to the lyrics as someone in a relationship that they have been in for years. Its comfortable in some ways but they feel they are being taken for granted and so have decided to seek solace in the arms of another. "Spend all your time waitin' for that second chance, for a break that would make it ok" an opportunity to be upset enough to go through with it. "There's always some reason to feel not good enough and its hard at the end of the day" these are the little jabs and slights that we seldom realize we are doing to one another. "I need some distraction, oh a beautiful release" the feeling of tricking yourself into feeling wanted if only for your body. "Memories seep from my veins" I believe this is the way we forget what brought us into the relationships in the first place so that we can justify to ourselves doing something outside of them. "It may be empty, oh your weightless then maybe I'll find some peace tonight" the act may be meaningless except to show yourself that you are beautiful, sexy, etc. all the things that you had allowed yourself to believe you are not.
   
   [CHORUS]
   "In the arms of the angel, far away from here, from this dark, cold hotel room and the endlessness that you fear" the actual act of being with someone and the endlessness being the relationship that is without love but too comfortable to leave. "You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent revelry, your in the arms of the angel may you find some comfort here" is the hope that this act may provide you with some peace in knowing that you are more than you are being treated as.
   
   "So tired of the straight life" the mundane existence of being looked over, day after day. "That everywhere you turn, there's vultures and thieves at your back" the elements of your life that take little pieces of you leaving in their place only the hurt and self loathing of not being good enough. "Storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies that you make up for all that you lack" is the anger you feel and the justifications you build to seek solace in the arms of someone who will appreciate you. "It don't make no difference, escape one last time" the feeling that giving yourself to someone will give you the strength to leave. "Its easier to believe in this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees" is where it all catches up to you, the regret, the futility of your current situation, the feeling that you may not have had much but you may have ruined whatever you did have. This is the feeling of being overwhelmed by hopelessness.
   
   [CHORUS]
   
   I understand that the song writer may have had an entirely different meaning when writing this song but the great part about music is that it can be interpreted so differently. This is my interpretation. Thanks for reading.

   
   
   
   

7.  

   anonymous

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   Mar 29th, 2014 3:55pm report

   
   

   I know of many of people within my own life that have addictions, I hope they find another reason to believe!

   
   
   
   

8.  

   anonymous

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   Dec 1st, 2013 12:27am report

   
   

   While from what I understand it's about the paradox of drug addiction( the thing that helps you is the things that's killing you), to me, it encompasses the feelings that someone suffering from depression feels.
   
   I see it in my oldest daughter. She's 15, and it makes her days and nights seem grey and endless. She would do anything to escape, and to feel weightless, like she's not dragging herself through her days.
   
   I found the lyrics to the song and played it for her as a way to try and start a conversation, she listen to it and cried. Someone understood.
   
   The angel in the song could be death. They are somehow not meant for the world, and it brings release from a life that is unbearable(my daughter is not at that point. Fear keeps her here)

   
   
   
   

9.  

   anonymous

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   Sep 27th, 2013 9:00pm report

   
   

   all are no help to understand the story on why she wrote this beautiful song... please does anyone know the acctual story (from Sarah's point of view)

   
   
   
   

10.  

    anonymous

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    Jun 16th, 2013 6:43am report

    
    

    This is about heroin addiction, my sister had to get sarahs permission to perform a song by her and she asked her about this one.. It is about heroin addiction

    
    
    
    

11.  

    anonymous

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    May 16th, 2013 5:56am report

    
    

    Whenever this song comes on the radio, or I hear it in some other way, for me it makes me relax. No matter what I am doing or how I am feeling, it reminds me of what is really important in life. I am in the arms of the angel every time my wife/children/grandchildren hug me!

    
    
    
    

12.  

    anonymous

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    Apr 25th, 2013 4:20pm report

    
    

    This song is actually about drug addiction. Dedicated to the Smashing Pumpkins keyboard player it represents the "peace" one experiences in his addiction.
    "May you find some comfort here" actually is a wish for the person to find some respite even if this means finding it in drugs

    
    
    
    

13.  

    Ewizobeth

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    Jan 30th, 2013 1:03pm report

    
    

    Continuing from first post.
    
    Re Alzheimers---I almost forgot the worst part---my dad is completely aware of what's happening to him.
    
    Some days he is frightened; other days he is filled with dread. Sometimes he is resigned and defeated.
    
    We lived on a lake, so that imagery is strong for me. It's like dad is in a boat, drifting farther and farther from shore. Now he is at least half way across, and it is getting harder to see him.
    
    He also believes he is in a hotel room, and nearly every day he asks when he can go home. He wants to go back to his childhood home. His trusty Goldendoodle sounds the alarm by barking and waking up mom every time dad tries to leave the house. It is the dead of winter now and he wouldn't last long.
    
    The "Angel" lyrics dovetail in so many other ways with what dad is going through. It is a very sad song, but it is also the doorway to my own sadness, which I have kept locked away all this time.

    
    
    
    

14.  

    Ewizobeth

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    Jan 30th, 2013 1:42pm report

    
    

    My dad is dying of Alzheimers. I am his best friend and favorite daughter. I talk to him every day. He was a brilliant, educated man. Now every day he disappears further into confusion and waking dreams. It is becoming brutal to witness the ravages of this disease. In less than three years he has gone from articulate to incoherent.
    
    When I bought this song from iTunes a few days ago, I had a different response from ever before. I had been trying so hard to comfort my dad that I had never acknowledged my own feelings. When I heard "Angels" I cried, really cried.
    
    If Sarah sees this song as appropriate for an animal humane society campaign, I think she has indicated that her song can have more than one meaning, even if the lyrics don't match perfectly.
    
    Sadly, the lyrics do match much of what happens to the Alzheimers patient. To be "pulled from the wreckage of his silent reverie" is exactly what I want for him. He may spend years in an almost vegetative state before he is finally released.
    
    This song is so touching. I appreciate in a new way now.

    
    
    
    

15.  

    ArmaniCultura

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    Aug 3rd, 2012 8:20pm report

    
    

    There are a lot of things in life, that are considered addictions. Money, sex etc. Drugs are not the only one. It's like for example with drugs it's like an endless cycle that you can't break out of, and it seems that the more you take drugs the less satisfied you become. The angel for me portrays the end of an addiction, happy or not, and the beginning of a new life based on happiness not pleasure.