The City - Intellectual

Ed was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Suffolk, therefore is a stranger in London. Since he wasn’t born in London, he is kind of new to the scene but he has moved there and that is now is home.

In this third and final iteration of these words, Ed sings “this is not my home,” suggesting a change of his character since the start of the song.

He is walking along the sidewalk with no real sense of direction or destination and just walking along. He believes it will probably lead him toward his home or a place he wants to be if he keeps walking.

But, unluckily, there are many difficulties on the path he’s let himself on and as he said before, London calls him a stranger, so he is not used to big city life, especially the harsher nature.

“The city that never sleeps” is usually considered New York City, but in this case it refers to London. This establishes how important it’s to him.

The city is awake, alive, and buzzing even through the night, meaning the “two” referenced in this line are the city of London and Ed himself.

He notices that there are still people walking around outside despite the late hour. Could be people walking home from a night out!

There are also police cars driving past outside with their loud sirens on. He uses the term ‘bleeding’ to describe the bright red lights from the police siren flash through his window. This shows the high crime rates in London.

His lungs hurting could either refer to the pollution in the city or just be a reference to how he smokes too much, as mentioned in the hook.

The city never sleeps, so his surroundings are too loud for his ears. Therefore he describes how his ears are hurting so much from the noices that they’re (metaphorically) bleeding.

Ed is smoking weed in the alley. But he does what he wants and no one’s got the authority to tell him what or what not to do.

Also a reference to how Ed’s music style is a little different from the mainstream music or what people expect. So, he’s doing his own thing and it’s not up to you to determine what he does… But it may also not be entirely up to him, based on the line “stuck here sitting in the backseat.” Much as he’d like to be, Ed is not the sole driver of his own life, and can’t see where his life is going, further evidenced by the earlier lyric “Can’t control what I’m into.”

This is also a clever rhyme with “back street” — it could mean that he has to take a taxi to get anywhere, therefore being stuck in the backseat.