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As many of the people who commented before me have said, the meaning to this song is in many ways fairly obvious, and yet, in my opinion, some people still misunderstand it to a point. Some of these comments were targeting the writer and the specific events that triggered him to write this song. However, I think this song has a meaning so much deeper than that. Possibly deeper than he ever meant it to be. It's message resonates with everyone because everyones experienced that feeling that just radiates from this song. Everyones been in a situation that this song just embodies. The first verse is the writer talking specifically about himself. It is him talking about the broken relationship that he's in, and wondering if it is his fault. To me the entirety of that verse is like a question to himself, and then the answer is the chorus. The chorus seems like where he just accepts that maybe no one is really at fault, that maybe life is never just good or bad, its both: they go hand in hand. The rose symbolizing the beauty and the happiness that exists in everything, and the thorn symbolizing the darkness or pain that exists under that beauty. The following line then states that just like all good comes with some dark undertones, all bad[night] has to eventually end[dawn] He then continues to say that every cowboy, who are often viewed as wild carefree people, has a sad song, which is sort of just a rewording of the message that nothing is just good or bad, by conveying that even the happiest people have a sad, dark story from sometime in their life. The following verses once again address his own specific situation and while I love all of them to keep this short I''ll just pull what to me is the most powerful lyric. That line being:
"Though it's been a while now
I can still feel so much pain
Like a knife that cuts you the wound heals
but the scar, that scar remains"
I love this line because it once again is relatable to everyone, because for most people whatever "sad song" they sing still hurts them somehow. And, though that pain may not be as bad as whenever it started it is still there, and like a scar it will never fade away, it may almost be forgotten but it will always be there. I also like that he then ties that into to his later line of how seeing her "cuts him like a knife" and to hear that he now means nothing to her "tears him up" Over all this song is just extremely sentimental, deep, and made all the more powerful by how relatable it is.
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