Woo-hoo! Our second song analysis is coming to you today… It’s one of my favorites by one of my absolute favorite bands…

Name by The Goo Goo Dolls!

And, if you’d like to have a listen to the song before, after, or even during my little analysis, you can do that by clicking here. (It’s literally just a link to the first youtube video that came up for the song… but I thought adding the link to this would make me look fancier.)

So, let’s start out with just reading through the lyrics and getting some first impressions.

Here we go!

And even though the moment passed me by
I still can’t turn away

(It’s kind of describing that moment after you hear some crazy news or something either really, really good or super, super bad happens and it leaves you stunned.)

Cuz all the dreams you never thought you’d lose
Got tossed along the way

(Whoever the ‘you’ is must have given up on his/her dreams… awe…)

And letters that you never meant to send
Got lost or thrown away

(I’m thinking this could be a type of metaphor for something like, ‘there’s things you didn’t really mean to say, but you ended up not saying them anyway.’ That even rhymed; they could have used that!)

And now we’re grown up orphans
And never knew their names

(Now they’re people who don’t know who they are or where they belong.)

We don’t belong to no one
That’s a shame

(No family… again, awe…)

But you could hide beside me
Maybe for a while
And I won’t tell no one your name
And I won’t tell ’em your name

(You could come hang out with me, and I’ll take care of you, and I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want them to know.)

(I have to play the guitar transition from this spot in my head before I go on, haha.)

And scars are souvenirs you never lose
The past is never far

(The mistakes you make are always with you; the past was only yesterday.)

Did you lose yourself somewhere out there?
Did you get to be a star?

(You probably lost your way and… then just something that rhymes with far, haha.)

And don’t it make you sad to know that life
Is more than who we are

(Ah, I love this line!)

(I don’t know how else to word it, though… Just that you know there’s more to life than just, well, you.)

We grew up way too fast
And now there’s nothing to believe

(We’re not kids anymore and we’ve lost our imagination… probably the saddest line from my view, haha.)

And reruns all become our history
A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio

(We do the same things everyday… over and over and over and over and…)

And I won’t tell no one your name
And I won’t tell ’em your name
I won’t tell em’ your name
Oooh, oooh, oooh
I won’t tell em’ your name
Ow!

(A quick yell and then into an awesome guitar solo!)

I think about you all the time
But I don’t need the same

(I think about you everyday, but you don’t need to think about me.)

It’s lonely where you are
Come back down

(This line made me think for a while… I feel like maybe the ‘you’ the whole time was someone who had passed away and is now thought to be in heaven, or something similar to that. It’s just one theory, but it’s definitely something to think about!)

And I won’t tell ’em your name

And… that’s the end! Now comes the hard part…

Why did John Rzeznik (the singer/lyricist) write this song to begin with? What’s the point? What’s the story?

Well, there’s one thing that I really love about The Goo Goo Dolls, and that is that their lyrics make you think. Just with any other Goo Goo Doll song, I think the most basic reason this song was ever written was to make me think. Of course, there were other reasons and other things that the writer had on his mind when he was scribbling down his words… but, it makes everyone think!

And I think that I’m starting to think this song was really written for someone who had passed away. Someone who had lost his/her dreams, ambitions, and imagination in the middle of growing up, and then either really lost their way in life, or passed away before they could recover their thoughts and everything. Really, at the base of it… that’s all the story is.

It’s really sad overall when you really analyze the lyrics and think about it… which I hope I don’t come to regret later, haha. Goo Goo Dolls songs always have at least some sad aspect to them, so I don’t think realizing this one has more than just a little depression hinted in it will ruin it for me or anything.

Anyway, this is all just my take on this classic lil’ 90s tune. I could be way off or way on, I don’t know, but, either way, I hope I provided you with something to think about for a while. So… let me know you think about… well, any of it!

Now, don’t it make you sad to know that life is more than who we are?

-iKari

(P.S. I’ve got 14/20 March Madness games right so far… not too terrible, yet!)