Category Archives: 2000s songs

The top 500 songs from the 2000s. Lyrics, interpretations and meanings from your favorite bands. Coldplay, Christina Perri, Christina Aguilera, Death Cab for Cutie, Greenday, Arcade Fire, and all your favorite bands from the 2000s ranked.

2000s songs, words not needed

#481 Chasing Cars- Snow Patrol

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Those three words/
Are said too much/
They’re not enough.

The mystery about this song is what the “chasing cars” lyric has to do with anything in the rest of the song. In the rest of the song Snow Patrol does a great job of expressing what the narrator is feeling. In “Chasing Cars”, the narrator contemplates his feelings while lying next to his love in a field or bed. He feels love for her, but feels saying “I love you” express too much; and too little. The song is about young love and the inability to express your feelings to another person. Love is ineffable.

Chasing Cars Meaning
Snow Patrol

There are so many lines in this song that are perfectly expressed, like the above, and:

All that I am/
All that I ever was/
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see.

The girl clearly loves him too and he can tell by the way she looks at him. It makes him imagine his best self that he can see in her eyes. He imagines that laying here with her would be enough for him to satisfy him forever.

“Chasing Cars” has simple instrumentation with the standout being the two-note alternating guitar pattern that continues throughout the song. In order to add variety, light distortion is added to the guitar in later verses, and piano in others. I have always thought that the ending was appropriate. While not something that immediately jumps out at you, the song just stops. Kind of like the author is being snapped back to reality from his reverie.

Chasing Cars Lyrics

We’ll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don’t need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don’t quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They’re not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life

Let’s waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see

I don’t know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Songwriters: Natah Connolly / Gary Lightbody / Jonathan Quinn / Tom Simpson / Paul Wilson

2000s songs, insecurity

#480 Superman (It’s Not Easy)- Five For Fighting

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Even Heroes have the right to dream/
It’s not easy to be me.

In Five For Fighting’s “Superman”, John Ondrasik imagines Superman voicing his insecurities as he flies and stops trains. He worries about kryptonite and feels silly in his red cape. He says, “It’s not easy to be me”, not because saving the world is a tough task, but because of silly feelings of insecurity.

Superman (It's not Easy) Meaning
Five for Fighting

The message is an important one: if Superman can feel insecure while saving the world, it is normal for me to feel insecure in my everyday life, as everyone experiences it-even superheroes.  It is clearly irrational for superman to feel insecure, so perhaps it is irrational when I have those feelings too.

The delicate piano playing creates a great sound that is antithetical to the Superman persona. Similarly, his tender vocals don’t sound like how we’d imagine Superman. This helps to hit the message home that perhaps we all feel uncomfortable inside our own skin. Perhaps it is a fundamental aspect of the human experience.

Superman (It’s Not Easy) Lyrics

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naïve
I’m just out to find
The better part of me

I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane
I’m more than some pretty face beside a train
And it’s not easy to be me

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I’ll never see

It may sound absurd, but don’t be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed, but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
And it’s not easy to be me

Up, up and away, away from me
Well, it’s all right, you can all sleep sound tonight
I’m not crazy or anything

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naïve
Men weren’t meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I’m only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me
Inside of me
Inside me
Inside me
Inside of me

I’m only a man
In a funny red sheet
I’m only a man
Looking for a dream

I’m only a man
In a funny red sheet
And it’s not easy
It’s not easy to be me

Songwriters: John Ondrasik

2000s songs, new love

#474 Flowers in the Window- Travis

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Wow look at you now/ 
Flowers in the window/
It’s such a lovely day.

Most of Travis’ “Flowers in the Window” is a derivation of the above sentiment. There are flowers in the windows, it is a lovely, sunny day, everything is grand. But in the beginning of the song he is cold like snow. What happened? He met a girl (she is “one in a million”) and his outlook changed. He sees the flowers in the windows, and it is such a lovely day. We’ll see this again with Yo Lo Tengo’s “My Corner of the World” and several more songs on this list.

Flowers in the Window Meaning
Travis

The mood of the song matches the authors viewpoint. In the beginning it is slightly down but then we get to the chorus and we hear a joyful chorus about newly discovered love. (We even hear birds singing in the background). The song is not necessarily saying anything specific about the woman, it is more like a song of celebration of new love.

The singer sounds almost giddy and it is refreshing and hopeful. The instrumentation sounds simple, but it is not. It has frequent chord changes and an excellent use of a banjo. I think that the banjo really provides the signature “frolic-y” sound of the song.

Flowers in the Window Lyrics

When I first held you I was cold
A melting snowman I was told
But there was no-one there to hold before
I swore that I would be alone for ever more
Wow look at you now
Flowers in the window
It’s such a lovely day
And I’m glad you feel the same
Cause to stand up, out in the crowd
You are one in a million
And I love you so
Lets watch the flowers grow

There is no reason to feel bad
But there are many seasons to feel glad, sad, mad
It’s just a bunch of feelings that we have to hold
But I am here to help you with the load

Wow look at you now
Flowers in the window
It’s such a lovely day
And I’m glad you feel the same
Cause to stand up, out in the crowd
You are one in a million
And I love you so
Lets watch the flowers grow

So now we’re here and now is fine
So far away from there and there is time, time, time
To plant new seeds and watch them grow
So there’ll be flowers in the window when we go

Wow look at us now
Flowers in the window
It’s such a lovely day
And I’m glad you feel the same
Cause to stand up, out in the crowd
You are one in a million,
And I love you so
Lets watch the flowers grow
Wow look at you now
Flowers in the window
Its such a lovely day
And I’m glad you feel the same
Cause to stand up, out in the crowd
You are one in a million
And I love you so
Let’s watch the flowers grow
Let’s watch the flowers grow

Songwriters: Francis Healy