[Verse 1]
It seems that I have been held in some dreaming state
A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake
No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber
Until I realise that it was you who held me under
[Pre-Chorus]
Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs
[Chorus]
No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world
[Verse 2]
And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack
And all around, the world was waking, I never could go back
'Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open
And finally, it seemed that the spell was broken
[Pre-Chorus]
And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open
And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open
[Chorus]
No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world
[Bridge]
Snow White is stitching up your circuit-boards
Synapse slipping through the hidden door
Snow White is stitching up your circuit-board
[Chorus]
No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world
[Outro]
Snow White's stitching up your circuit-boards
Synapse slipping through the hidden door
The feeling of absolute devastation reverberates through her body–blocking out all else. It is all-encompassing and overpowering. These lines poetically clash with the restfulness/delusions of the first passage. Now, instead of being passive, her whole body is in conflict as she shaken by this new reality.
Florence is comparing herself to Snow White, and her brain to a circuit-board. She’s stitching up the pieces of her disordered life in her head – trying to put back together the fragments.
Alternatively and less likely, “Snow White” could represent cocaine; implying that it is drugs that are responsible for her disordered brain, as she tries to forget.
The last chorus is muttered – almost like a ghost or a demon; something that you’d imagine would hide under your bed.
The final line ends with a long gasp – perhaps suggesting that she has woken.
Florence stated in an interview that during the recording process they projected a moon on to the ceiling as she laid on the floor and muttered.
The simile ‘calling like a crow’ describes the desperation with which Florence cries out – for her lover (the boy), and for those she has lost (the body).
In these lines and, indeed, throughout the entirety of the song, Florence attempts to instil herself with the power to leave the past behind, and to tear herself out of the world she has fashioned within her mind.
In the context of the song, it means that she was in love with a dead person “as if death was undone,” loving him as if he was alive. Now she’s attempting to break free from that thought pattern.
As a young child, Florence feared her family dying all at once. The fear overwhelmed her to the point she couldn’t stop the horrible daydreams. Finally as one of many coping mechanisms, she would picture Snow White.
She has become very pessimistic about relationships, and gives up on “dreaming like a girl”, like a child who was innocent and hopeful and didn’t see the world for what it was.
Florence feels she is trapped in her dream-like state; never able to truly relate or connect to reality.
This is also a line to show how she has finally been woken from her sleep, and is in the state of being half-awake and wanting to get back into the dream she was enjoying, since she wants to carry on dreaming about being with the boy/person she’s with in her dream that she can’t have in reality.
In the end, what awoke Florence wasn’t a kiss, but instead resentment and revenge toward the one who put her asleep.
Although water isn’t mentioned in this song, “held me under” is one of the many mentions of drowning that appear often in Lungs.
Snow White is awakened by a kiss – her prince awakening her from her comatose state. The irony in these lines are that whilst it took a KISS from a lover to wake Snow White, it takes Florence’s lover LEAVING her to wake her up.
Even though Snow White is mentioned here, the notion of being stuck in a dream world is more analogous to the tale of Sleeping Beauty. This may reinforce the disordered undertones of the song – the fairy tales are out of order, just as her reality is.
Florence has spoken in an interview stating that she is a lesbian when in Paris because the people there are “well, you know” it is possible this song is in part about overcoming compulsory heterosexuality. In the previous line she states that she is calling for a boy, for a body in the garden. So in love with the wrong world she is desperate for a boy to love her, a body inside of her bed and heart But the world of heterosexuality isn’t for her. Many queer people cited fantasies of living a perfect heterosexual romance as things that held them back from discovering themselves.
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