What does Anthem of Our Dying Day mean?

Story of the Year: Anthem of Our Dying Day Meaning

Tagged:   No tags, suggest one.
Album cover for Anthem of Our Dying Day album cover

Anthem of Our Dying Day Lyrics

The stars will cry
The blackest tears tonight
And this is the moment that I live for
I can smell the ocean air
And here I am
Pouring my heart onto these rooftops
Just a ghost to the world
That's exactly
Exactly what I need

From up here...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 13th 2006 !⃝

    Baby it means this guys sitting back watching the world fall apart around him and there's nothing he can do so he wish something would happen to take all the pain away.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 7th 2007 !⃝

    Somebody please read this...

    I think that this song has to do with somebody who hates change, and wishes everything would remain the same. I have heard from some sources that this song has to do with ghosts, and I do agree now, but I will try to expand on that.

    "Anthem of our dying day" means that a person, or ghost, has created a song in honor of a time that once was, but is being destroyed. ex. Indian + Settlers = Big change. In this example, the Indian's life is an example of a "dying day" because that time is changing; settlers are moving in and building cities, get it? "Anthem of our dying day" really doesn't have to do with anyone dying, or the world ending, just change, which brings us to...

    "From up here the city lights burn, like a thousand miles of fire"... This line tells us a few things. 1)We know that the singer is a ghost because "up here" refers to heaven. 2) The singer is relating the city, or change, to a giant fire, that is sweeping across the land and must be put out. "For a second I wish the tide..." tells us that the singer wants a tide of water (water puts out fire) to change things back to the way they were before. "I'd scream this song right in your face if you were here." This line shows us again that the singer is in heaven because the person drowning is not "here" in heaven, but is on earth.

    That covers the main parts of the song. The rest rest are just details to emphisize these points.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 27th 2009 !⃝

    Ok I know someone is gonna say I'm wrong but here I go:
    "The stars will cry The blackest tears tonight" I think the narrator is sitting outside at night tryin to express his sadness over a lose of someone he loved very much by saying "the stars" or heavens will cry because his pain is so great or tonight when it rains it will be the saddest rain.

    "And this is the moment that I live for" means all though he's in so much pain, these kind of things (pain, sadness, ect.) complete him in a way. like gives him strength

    "I can smell the ocean air" means just that. He lives near the ocean

    "And here I am Pouring my heart onto these rooftops"
    means he feels the rain is the pain in his heart and he wants everyone to see his pain, as he lets it pour hard on their roof tops

    "Just a ghost to the world That's exactly Exactly what I need" means he feels like to everyone in the world he's no one. and he needs that either in a sarcastic way like "oh yea that's just wat I need" or like it fules him in some way

    "From up here the city lights burn Like a thousand miles of fire And I'm here to sing this anthem Of our dying day" means that he maybe standing or sitting on a roof or high place during all of this and is able to see the city and its lights and is saying they look like "a thousand miles of fire" and as this all happens he is singing or crying or expressing in some way his pain and its the song of the end of their love and relationship

    "For a second I wish the tide Would swallow every inch of this city As you gasp for air tonight" means as he looks down at the city he wishes a tide or something would destroy the city he hates and has destroyed him and brought him pain and he imagines his ex drowning and feeling as much pain as he does, to feel literally how he feels emotionally. gasping for air as he drowns in sorrow

    "I'd scream this song right in your face If you were here" means he wishes he could scream at her, scream his pain in her face so she would hear his pain and he could make her listen

    "I swear I won't miss a beat Cause I never Never have before" means he's never messed up in describing his pain before and he defiantly won't if he had the chance to tell her now

    and the parts repeated maybe the narrator repeating his wishes over and over. wanting so badly for them to come true. or screaming his pin out or describing it or reliving it over and over.

    i mean that's wat happened to me about 5 years ago. That's wat the song means to me, every word I wrote. Its amazing how a song can play seamlessly to our lives

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 22nd 2014 !⃝

    This song has a completely different meaning to me personally than was intended by the artists. It pretty much sums up my feelings for the city I live in. I grew up here, and I hate it. I had actually moved away, but had to move back for my job. One day I drove up to the mountains, and this song was on the radio as I was looking down on the city. The line "For a second I wish the tide / would swallow every inch of this city / as you gasp for air tonight" and I thought about how I would love for this entire city, and all the negative memories I have of it, would just be wiped out like that. Even though I know that's not what this song is about, that's what this song makes me feel. I hope someday I can get out of here for good.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 23rd 2010 !⃝

    I think that this is a guy/girl that is missing someone important to them in their life because they did something terrible to him/her. It's a song full of mixed emotions of anger, sadness, and some kind of a depression. my bud gave me this song and 'until the day I die' for me to listen to them and that's the first thing that popped into my head.

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 19th 2009 !⃝

    I think that this dudes girlfriend drowned.
    ND MAYBE HE WATCHED HER DROWN FROM THE TOP OF A BUILDING,
    OH WHAT IF HE WAS GONNA JUMP OFF THE building and commit suicide but his girlfriend wasn't okay with that and decided to kill herself first so as he was on top of the building about you know kick the bucket he looked down and saw his girlfriend drowning. and was like oh shit "from up here the city lights burn like a thousand miles of fire, and I'm here to sing this anthem of our dying day." as in the day that they both fell apart.


    pick at that and rearrange it abit, I'm sure you can make sense out of it.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 18th 2009 !⃝

    I pretty much see a guy.
    Standing on the roof of a tall building.
    Looking out over the city and the ocean.
    He's hurt, because of a relationship.

    "the stars will cry the blackest tears tonight."
    That could mean it is raining.
    Or be more metaphorical to the sky crying with him.
    Or for his situation.
    "just a ghost to the world."
    he feels empty without her, and like a ghost to the world.
    like an outsider.

    "from up here the city lights burn, like 1000 miles of fire. And i'm here to sing this anthem of our dying day."

    He's looking out at the city, and all the pain he is felt there, and it burns like fire. Its the anthem of the dying day. or the day their love died.

    "For a second i wish the tide, would swallow every inch of this city. as you gasp for air tonight. i'd scream this song right in your face if you were here."

    He wants the ocean to wash over everything. put out the fire and all the pain. He'd scream all these feelings to her, but she isn't here.

    It's all metaphoric.
    he is not a ghost or in heaven.
    Just heartbroken.
    and i don't think he wants to jump off the building.
    Just up there to collect thoughts.

    :D

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 22nd 2008 !⃝

    My view is that it is a person standing on the top of a building, about to jump, thinking about all that they've lost in this city that they hate.

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 10th 2008 !⃝

    Okay. I have a kinda different view of this song.

    I think it's about this ghost boy who standing on like a make-out point [you know, where teens go to have some fun that usually look out over a hill of something.] and remembering things about this girl he once loved. This guys standing there and looking out over a city that is located on the beach.

    He's remembering the times he had with a girl before she [possibly] died. [at this make-out point] I think she killed herself. He wonders why the world [thats why he says, "for a second I wish the tide would swallow up this whole city"] didn't help this girl that he loved.

    Looking at the "thousand miles of fire" he's watching the people who didn't or wouldn't help and it brings him pain to think.

    Thats my view of it.

  10. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 7th 2007 !⃝

    OH MY FREAKING GOD!
    badassmonkeykid sums it up perfactly on songmeanings

    "The stars will cry, the blackest tears tonight,
    and these are the moments that I live for,
    I can smell the ocean air"
    whats going on in the song is simultaneously literal and metaphorical. The singer is at a beach, or somewhere off the ocean, that has meaning to the relationship he just got out of. The blackest tears refers to the rain, but also to the mourning for what he lost, because it seems he loved her very much.

    "Here I am pouring my heart on to these roof tops,
    just a ghost, to the world.
    That's exactly, exactly what I need. "
    Here the image of the rain is strengthened, and the idea that the world around the singer is reflecting his pain. The rainis pouring down onto him in this city that brings him so much pain. He feels alone, because the one he loves is gone, and the rain is the the cleansing of his body of all the pain he feels.

    "From up here the city lights burn, like 1000 miles of fire, and I'm here to sing this anthem of our dying day. "
    He imagines himself looking down upon the landscape, and he sees the lights of the city (I personally get a picture of the outer banks at night, with all the houses burning bright against the ocean, but that's because my painfuly wonderful memories reside there). The city has this life that he resents, and he feels like he is dying, and so he announces it to the world.

    "For a second I wish the tide,
    would swallow every inch of this city,
    as you gasp for air tonight.
    i'll scream this song right in your face, if you were here. "
    Here, he feels anger as a reaction to his pain and he can almost picture is pain and tears and the rain welling up and flooding the city that tortures him. The meaning of the second portion, is if you were here, id scream this song in your face as you gasp for air, the order was changed for rhyming reasons, but its self explanitory, the singer wants to tell her how much he resents what she's done to him, and show her what he has done in the wake of his pain.

    "I swear I won't miss a beat, cause I never, never have before."
    here the singer is closing his story. He's driven by anger and pain and doesn't know how to deal, so he's gripping to this picture of himself screaming every last sylable to the girl who destroyed him, because that's all that can satisfy his pain. So he screams it out, and doesn't miss a beat, just like every time before. Things will get better.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 15th 2006 !⃝

    The stars will cry the blackest tears tonight (acid rain?)
    i can smell the ocean air (smog?)
    for a second I wish the tide would swallow every inch of this city (hurricane?)
    as you gasp for air tonight (polluted air?)

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 10th 2006 !⃝

    This song is about how our world is dying.


More Story of the Year songs »


 


Latest Articles

 


Submit Your Interpretation

[ want a different song? ]




Just Posted

Taking Over Me anonymous
All The Good Girls Go To Hell anonymous
Wingriddenangel anonymous
I Spoke to The Devil in Miami anonymous
This Woman's Work anonymous
Action! Not Words anonymous
Everybody Loves Me, Baby anonymous
Fall in to Sleep anonymous
Lemon Boy anonymous
Drama Club anonymous
Gravity anonymous
Our First Time anonymous
Nymphetamine anonymous
Liquid Smooth anonymous
Teddy Bear anonymous

(We won't give out your email)