Lyrical Analysis of "Can't Run Away" by The Brave Little Abacus

Line-by-line explanation of imagery and my own conclusions of what to take away from listening to the song

“Can’t Run Away” is the halfway point of the album Just Got Back from the Discomfort . . . We’re Alright by The Brave Little Abacus. 

This song has no chorus or really even verses. It’s written straight, and it’s written like a diary entry. There’s heavy use of imagery, and the perspective changes from memories to the present multiple times in the song. It’s more like the narrator was trying to put his feelings on paper—thinking out loud, in a stream-of-consciousness style—than trying to make their thoughts understandable for someone else. The song is deeply confessional, and self-referential, making it hard to understand on the first listen. However, this style allows the narrator to express how hard it is to express themselves, how difficult it is to be understood, and how alone they feel. 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand the imagery in this song. Probably the song writer is the only person who really knows everything he means in the lines below, but I think my notes below are a pretty good start.

Other than the lyrics themselves, I listened to the track-by-track on the E-Word’s 10 year anniversary podcast about Just Got Back with Adam Demirjian (frontman of BLA) many times, and annotated “Can’t Run Away"’s section. Obviously all of it is important, but I’m putting some quotes from Adam at the top here before writing out the lyrics. I think knowing the headspace he was in when he wrote the song, and how he recalls it now 10 years later, can help make stronger conclusions about the lyrics. 

Adam Demirjian Describing “Can’t Run Away” on the E-Word Podcast

• "I feel bad for the guy who wrote that song" [talking about himself 10 years ago, at 18/19]

• "I was very upset about a number of things… just the way my life was going, and I was having difficulty finding solace in simple things. . . And uh sometimes finding solace in a simple thing in a song would put me back on track, so to say."

• "I didn't feel understood by either my social group or my parents, but I knew that I was safer with my parents than what was going on outside their walls. Or at least more comfortable"

• "I'm a big decorator . . . and that kind of started at that time in my life just because I was really, really, fuckin lonely, and I think it was a paramore poster. . . they make me feel less alone."

Executive Summary

In a few words, this song is about the experience of reliving a memory. The narrator starts by describing where they are and what is on their mind: sitting in their room waiting thinking about a poster that will be delivered soon. They say this poster will be used to relive a memory, which they then describe. The memory is of a new year’s kiss, outside. The rest of the song is about how that experience made the narrator feel, and how they remember it now. They are struggling with their loneliness, in spite of and because of that kiss, and they wonder aloud if they will ever find people who they can be completely honest with. 

Lyrics from Can’t Run Away

1 Hat of green shows symmetry

2 In front of hat alone sits me

3 Fourth day

4 I don’t want it anyway

5 To be reliving

6 It won’t be that bad again because

7 It can’t amount in comparison

8 “I should intimidate you and you should intimidate yourself!”

9 Thirty minutes of make-up

10 For all to see but you

11 Are not what I want you to be

12 Universal, there

13 At three AM on the first of the year

14 When it started, I’m not sure

15 In a jumper, with a bracelet

16 In a jumper, with a bracelet

17 On your right wrist

18 That turns with a golden knob

19 Opening amidst a dense yellow light, fading,

20 To reveal an infinite sky

“And, juxtaposed to the accelerating swell of the musical score, pushes its audience to realize just what is ahead: The character’s fear and the physical manifestation of their hopes and dreams coming closer and closer and closer and Kiss me!”

21 My dad says things that make me laugh

22 He meows Tom Petty songs and that’s why I stay

23 Unlike running water, can’t run away

24 There are more here than merely bodies

25 Things without fear of surrounding me

26 Branches to catch me falling

27 Perhaps someone who understands

28 When I say “I’m sad”, I mean it

29 That there is no excuse, I need this

30 What I said about hat of green

31 Led me to see that my superimposition of a face

32 Upon a poster on it’s way

33 Arriving any day, that will accompany me every night

34 In a welcoming of rest

35 Tacked onto the drywall surrounding me

36 Will probably return me to this fading

37 The sky being a bedroom

38 “Kiss me!”

39 But I don’t want to

Details

The dynamics of the song are very important to the delivery of the lyrics [so listen to the song right now if you haven’t already]. The sound builds from a subdued acoustic style to a cathartic full-throated release, and then relents to down-tempo ambience that meanders into the next song. To me, this conveys the emotional hangover of sharing something difficult, or of reliving an experience in your head and staring at the ceiling in your bedroom. 

The shouted lines, overlapping with the main voice, act as other voices or thoughts in the same mind. Briefly drifting focuses from the material present (a room) to some thoughts about a movie, or a flash of embarrassment and self-hatred. The alternation between seeing through the eyes of the narrator (lines 1, 2, 13-20, 35, and 37) and then hearing the narrator’s thoughts as they occur further reinforces the stream-of-consciousness style, placing the listener directly in the place of the narrator.

Line by Line

In lines 1 and 2 we start off with the narrator sitting in his room, looking at a green hat.

In line 3, I think “Fourth day” is referring to the number of days the narrator has waited for the poster to arrive. It’s followed immediately by the lines “I don’t want it anyway / to be reliving”, which we find out is a lie later in the song. They’re just frustrated with the waiting, and also with the fact that they want the poster so badly, frustrated that they feel like they need it. I read this as shame at the fact that they cannot control their emotions. The words “to be reliving” show the intention of the poster when it arrives, and agrees with the intention stated later in the song, which is to relive a memory. 

Lines 6 and 7, “It won’t be that bad again because / It can’t amount in comparison” state that no matter how badly the narrator might feel in the future, it will never compare to how they felt in the past. Presumably, the past is specifically the moment when the narrator realized the person they shared a moment with, the someone whose face they’re superimposing on the poster, isn’t right for them. 

Line 8, “I should intimidate you and you should intimidate yourself!” When you intimidate someone, you make them afraid of you. So, what is literally being said is, “You should be afraid of me [the thought, ‘I’], and you should be afraid of yourself.” In the context of the song, I think this is a brief thought in the narrator’s head that feels like it comes from another voice, which is why it’s voiced differently than the surrounding lines, and immediately follows a line referencing the worst emotion the narrator has ever felt. I think this line is the embodiment of an intrusive thought, and it feels like a call for help or a descent into crisis. 

Lines 9 and 10, “Thirty minutes of makeup / for all to see”, I don’t think is very deep on its own. It’s just a comment on the work someone put in to look nice for other people, or maybe one other person specifically. 

Lines 11 and 12 “You are not how I want it to be / Universal, there” pairs with the line “I want it to be selfishly how I want it,” from the song “Orange, Blue with Stripes” The second line of that song is “one human, read my cue, cue tears.” With those lines together, it’s really easy to see the narrator is saying “I, selfishly, want someone who gets me, who can read my cues. And you are not that, you are not how I want it to be.” Line 9, 10, and 11 together read as “Everything about you is great, but you’re not what I want.”

The word “Universal” in line 12 confuses me. What is literally being said is “I want you to be universal, and you’re not that.” Some selected synonyms for “universal” are “ubiquitous”, “comprehensive”, “complete”, and “all-inclusive.” From this, I think the narrator is saying “You’re not everything that I want.” They describe this complete desire as “selfish” in “Orange, Blue with Stripes”, but “selfish” here just means “self-interested.” I read this as the narrator saying they feel guilty for trying to be with someone when they knew that someone wasn’t exactly what they wanted, and the narrator knew it would go nowhere. 

In lines 13 and 14, “At three AM on the first of the year / When it started I’m not sure”, the narrator is giving the time and place of a memory they’re about to describe, but they only know the time at the end of the memory. It’s late at night on the New Years, January 1st (probably 2010 or 2009 since the album was released in May of 2010).

Lines 15 to 20 are all imagery that describe the beginning of the memory. With “in a jumper, with a bracelet / in a jumper, with a bracelet / on your right wrist” the narrator describes the other person they share this memory with, and ties the turning wrist into a turning doorknob, “that turns with a golden knob.” I really think this door leads outside because “opening amidst a dense, yellow light” sounds like the door opening to a porch light, which are often a hard yellow to look more natural outside. 

On Genius the last word is written as “fade” but to me it sounds like “fading.” Either way, walking away from the door gives the effect of a fading light, revealing the dark night sky, becoming more visible the farther away they walk from the door and the better their eyes adjust. Eventually, they walk far enough “to reveal an infinite sky.”

So, from lines 15 to 20, the narrator describes the memory of following someone outside to look at the stars at a New Years Eve party, far away from the lights on the outside of a house they were just in. This is a scenario that I’m sure many experts would describe as moderately romantic.

The spoken word bit is directly from an essay the narrator wrote about The Brave Little Toaster, except in the repetition of the word “closer” the narrator switches from the reading to the memory of a New Years kiss. Also, “closer and closer and closer and closer” functions metaphorically as being pulled toward all the things you thought you wanted, and literally as closing the distance for a kiss. Reading this backwards, this kiss was the physical manifestation of the narrator’s hopes and dreams, and all the swirling emotions leading up to that moment were like the accelerating swell of a musical score. 

We learn at the end of the song that this feeling wasn’t nervous excitement. It was dread. It was fear of all the things the act might mean or entail. We also learn at the end of the song that the line “Kiss me!” in the spoken word is uttered by the person that led the narrator outside, not the narrator. 

On a metatextual level [insert groan here], this part of the song was included by Adam as another voice to criticize the song and the paper he’s reading from. This knowledge in hand, we can interpret the very quick reading as a fleeting, self-critical thought, knowingly over-dramatizing and over-analyzing the faux-similarity of the situations. In reality, a New Year’s kiss shouldn’t be a big deal, even if it’s staged romantically. However, this might not be so true for an 18 or 19 year old, and we know Adam was that old when he wrote this song.

As a whole, this spoken word bit should be read the same way the shouted line 8 is. It’s an outburst of self-frustration the narrator directs at themselves. It’s not clear to me if the narrator actually followed through with that kiss, or why they want to relive this memory, given how upset they seem by it. 

Line 21 breaks us out of the recalled memory and self-frustration back into the present. From lines 21 to 27 the narrator is basically saying that if no one else gets them, maybe their parents get them. We know from Adam’s interview that he lived with his parents at this time, and obviously he (and the narrator) see their parents as much more than roommates. And the simple happiness he feels listening to his dad play a song is the reason he stays home, why he can’t run away from what he’s feeling. His parents have always supported him, and they are branches—literally sturdy limbs—that surround him and will catch him if he falls. 

I didn’t feel like the line-by-line was necessary above, but it’s fun to note “can’t run away” is the song’s name, and so line 23 is like a promise the narrator makes to themselves. “Unlike running water, can’t run away”: water doesn’t think, it just flows. The narrator is saying to themselves that they can’t run away from how they feel. They know trying to run won’t fix anything or help them understand themselves.  

Line 28. The big emotional climax of the song, possibly of all emo in the year 2010. The line “when I say ‘I’m sad’, I mean it” conveys a longing so sincere it hurts. The want, as always, is to be understood. This line actually must be combined with lines 24 and 27 to get its full meaning. That is “There are more here than merely bodies / … / Perhaps someone who understands that / When I say ‘I’m sad’, I mean it.” Literally saying, “the people in this house are more than bodies, and maybe they are the people who truly understand me, who don’t just shrug when I tell them I feel bad.” The end of line 28 should also be read as a lead-in to line 29 as in “. . . I mean it / That there is no excuse, I need this”, now referring to the poster and how badly they need to feel less alone. 

Lines 29 to 37 are hard to understand as written, so I’m going to rewrite them here as I understand them, with antecedents filled in, and parenthetical commas added.

That there is no excuse, I need this [the poster]. What I said about hat of green led me to see that my superimposition of a face, on a poster, on its way, arriving any day, that will accompany me in a welcoming of rest, tacked onto the drywall surrounding me, will probably return me to this fading [the memory of the fading light], the sky [in the memory] being a bedroom [in the present reality].

What is literally being said above is 

I feel like I really need this poster. When I think about it, I’ll think about someone else’s face on it. The poster is already on its way, it will be here any day, and I’ll look at it when I go to sleep. Looking at it will probably make me remember that one time, with that one person.

The “I need this” is a statement of how lonely the narrator is. They are putting all their hopes and dreams on a poster, a piece of paper. They are anxiously awaiting its arrival, thinking it will help them feel even a little less lonely. 

In line 30, “What I said about hat of green” uses the same phrasing as the line “What I said about Christmas trees” on “Orange, Blue with Stripes”, which was referenced once earlier in the song. 

Line 31 “Led me to see that my superimposition of a face / Upon a poster …” confirms the intention of the poster that was alluded to in the first lines of the song. It will be used to help relive a memory, but it’s not clear why the narrator would want to relive that memory.

From line 34, the words “a welcoming of rest” have the same meaning as the line “let me bathe amidst my ignorance / as if I were asleep” from “Aubade (Morning Love Song)”, on the same album. For the narrator, sleep is a respite from the stress of life. 

It’s interesting to think that “Can’t Run Away” might be about the events from “Aubade” or vice-versa, or that they are both about the same instance. This is troubling because it produces an inconsistent narrator. From the first lines of “Aubade”: “Yes I thought our lips would meet / Or at the very least our eyes / Never even tried.” The narrator definitely didn’t kiss anyone and regrets not being given the chance. In “Can’t Run Away”, whether or not the kiss happens is an open question. 

Clearly, it’s impossible to give a complete analysis of a single song on this album without also making analyses of every song on the album, which is a testament to the tightness of the album’s writing and thematic structure.

Finally, lines 37 and 38, “ ‘Kiss me!’ / But I don’t want to.” 

These lines tie the song together. Until now, it wasn’t said directly, but the narrator didn’t want to have that New Year’s kiss. We don’t know if it happened, so we conclude the narrator either regrets kissing that person in a jumper with a bracelet on, or regrets making them feel bad by not kissing them. Either way, it’s regret and loneliness. So why does the narrator want a poster to relive this memory?

I think the narrator wants to relive this memory and have it go differently, have it happen with a different person, have it happen with someone who doesn’t have to pressure them to make out, have it happen with someone who gets them and doesn’t question them, have it happen with someone who is “universal”, have it happen with someone who is “selfishly” the way the narrator wants them to be. The poster will help them remember that memory, which, in reality, was hard for them to experience, but was so close to being a happy memory, if that one person was someone else just a bit different.

Connections to Other Songs

Adam’s new band, Me In Capris, has a song called “For Those Who Think You” with the line “When I’m woke, it’s blue / When I dream, it’s you.” That song and this one have a similar slowed down acoustic style, so it makes me think that the “you” he’s dreaming about in that song is the same person he’s thinking about in “Can’t Run Away.” I think this comparison is a little stronger than “hmm, two sad acoustic songs by the same person” because both songs are about thoughts while going to bed or being asleep, and sleeping to avoid being awake is a recurring theme of Just Got Back.

The song title “Orange, Blue with Stripes” could be describing the color and design of a sweater, or “jumper”, further tying the two songs together. The trouble with this is Adam said in the E-Word podcast that “Orange, Blue with Stripes” is partially about a one-act play he wrote his senior year of high school. Without reading the play, it’s impossible to know who the people he references in “Orange, Blue with Stripes” are and how important (or not) they might be to the interpretation of “Can’t Run Away.”

From American Football's song "Honestly?" there are the lines "The long awaited / Sickening kiss" which describe a situation similar to the kiss from “Can’t Run Away.” Whether it happened or not, the narrator was anticipating it and still feels bad about the outcome. I include these lyrics to point out the experience is not uncommon, and because this Substack is currently named “Honestly?”

In The Front Bottom’s song “Flashlight” there are the opening lines “Please fall asleep, so I can take pictures of you and hang them in my room / So when I wake up, be like, ‘Yeah, everything's alright.’“ Waking up to a picture of someone who calms your heart and mind is basically the complete opposite of going to sleep staring at a poster wondering what could have been with someone you almost really liked. It’s worth noting that the bliss felt by the narrator of “Flashlight” is fleeting. That relationship ends, and they’re left with the pictures. In the end, that narrator probably feels the same as the narrator from “Can’t Run Away.”

Conclusion

This song was written by the narrator to understand themselves better. It’s confessional and details of the memory are only missing because the narrator has that knowledge implicitly, and they didn’t write the song so the audience could experience the memory. The audience only experiences the recollection of the memory and the surrounding environments, literally the narrator’s bedroom in his childhood home, and metaphorically in the safety of his parent’s supportive home. 

Understanding yourself better won’t always make you feel better. I think the narrator is really struggling to square his life with his ideals. I might be projecting, but I really think the narrator is causing his own loneliness because they are taking their own ideals too seriously. They are obsessing over a New Years kiss, whether or not it should have happened, because the person that situation happened with wasn’t exactly what they wanted. They’re obsessing because they knew at the outset that person wasn’t what they wanted, but the situation happened all the same. So, they’re left regretting leading that person on, and fumbling with their emotions, not being able to explain that they’re lonely even though people want to be around them. 

In their fumbling, they blame other people. The narrator believes that no one they know understands what they mean when they say it. They communicate, but people don’t really hear it. The narrator is being vulnerable, but they don’t feel like people take them seriously. The narrator is experiencing a loneliness so deep and profound that it feels disingenuous to share an intimate experience with someone else, because the narrator “knows” that the other person doesn’t really “get them”, so what’s the point?

The thing is the narrator knows their loneliness isn’t unique. That’s why they mock themselves and their emotions with the spoken word part in the middle of the song. But knowing they aren’t alone doesn’t make them feel less alone. Belittling their emotions doesn’t help them feel better. In fact, writing this song doesn’t even help that much. This song gives us no conclusions, only a “maybe I’ll find that one person someday” in the line “Perhaps someone who understands.” The narrator’s “fix” to their emotions is to buy a poster, hang it in their room, and think about how things could have been different. I don’t need to say it, but this obviously isn’t healthy or beneficial.

But I think it reflects a real experience that someone had, and that other people have. People really do believe they are lonelier than others, that their alone-ness is special, and truly separates them from other people, so much so that they can’t participate in life in a “normal” way. People do reflect and relive certain situations where they wish they had been different or that the person they were with was different. I think this song resonates with people because it’s easy to think of something that was almost perfect, but just wasn’t quite right. And you better believe that when I say “people” above, I’m including myself.

Since the song doesn’t supply a real conclusion, solution, or hopeful ending, I’ll insert my own: reflect on your emotions, try to understand yourself, and grow without excessively reliving the past. Even more specifically, ask yourself if your loneliness is self-imposed and, if so, shed it! Ultimately the narrator feels like this because they are literally stuck in their own head, the entire song takes place there. Being convinced that other people can’t understand you is a self-fulfilling prophecy that will force you to miss sharing great moments with other people. 

Adam, the song-writer, eventually grew out of these feelings. He says in the E-Word Podcast that he’s unable to connect with the person [himself, 10 years ago] who wrote these incredibly sad songs on Just Got Back. As much as I love The Brave Little Abacus, I’m thankful that Adam made it past the experiences he wrote about and is now making incredible music with Me In Capris.

—

Note about literary analysis

I am not stating that the above is the “Correct”™ interpretation of the song, or that I know for a fact that this is what the song means and refers to. I am stating that this is how I read the song. This is how all the aural, lyrical, structural, and contextual information of the song mix together in my head with my experiences and knowledge of music, writing, and life, to form a narrative. This is how I understand the song. For me, it’s not enough that when I hear it, it makes me tear up. It’s not enough that when I sing it, I can’t always get through the last ten lines. I have to write it out, I have to show my work, I have to say where I see all the thoughts coming from, and what they mean. When I understand it, I build a deeper connection to the song, and I build a deeper connection with myself. It’s introspection through an analysis of someone else’s artistic representation of their own introspection. That’s just one way to read media, but I think it makes the most sense to read this song this way, because the conclusions this analysis leads me to seem the most plausible, to me.