I Will Follow You into the Dark - Verse 3

You and me we've seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary and the soles of your shoes
Are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
But it's nothing to cry about
'Cause we'll hold each other soon in the blackest of rooms

Hello and welcome to Learning English with Lyrics, the podcast where we break down English language song lyrics to help improve your grammar, vocabulary, and general knowledge of English. I am your host Jake, and today we're discussing verse 3 of the song "I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. If you haven't listened to the first three episodes of this series, I recommend pausing this episode, and starting from the beginning of the series, with Episode 1. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, there is also an episode titled "Introduction", that I recommend listening to before anything else.

Alright, enough talk. Let's get started!

We're going to begin with the first line and the beginning of the second line, since they are both connected.

"You and me, we've seen everything to see, from Bangkok to Calgary"

The singer says "You and me, we've seen everything to see". The words "You and me" and the word "we" represent the same thing. In fact it wasn't necessary to have the word "we" at all! It just sounded nice. But for our purposes, we are going to simplify it to "You and me have seen everything to see".

Uh oh. Do you see a problem? Here we see one of the most common mistakes in English grammar. Don't stress too much if you didn't notice. You've probably heard this mistake a lot. What's wrong here?

The problem is the usage of the word "me" here. It should actually be the word "I". If you didn't notice, don't worry. Most native speakers wouldn't notice this mistake, but we are going to talk about it anyway. It's not a big deal if you make this mistake, but you need to know why it's incorrect.

Now of course, if the singer had used the word "I" instead of "me" it wouldn't have rhymed, so we are going to give him a pass here.

For us however, in everyday usage, how do we remember when to use "I" and when to use "me"?

When we are talking about ourselves as the "subject" of the sentence, we use the word "I". "I have seen everything".

When we are talking about ourselves as an "object" in the sentence, we use the word "me". "You talked to me".

Let's do a couple more examples for practice. "You and I are going to the movies". Is this correct? What part of speech is "I" in this sentence? If you said "the subject" you are correct! And the subject will always be..."I"! So it is correct to use the word "I" here. What about this one? "He wants to go to the park with you and I". Is "I" the subject of the sentence? Nope! The subject is "He", "He wants to go to the park", which means "I" is not our subject. It is an object. That means this sentence is incorrect, and we should be using the word "me". The correct sentence is "He wants to go to the park with you and me." Much better!

Many people will try to correct that second example I gave you. It is such a common issue that people get corrected so much, that they incorrectly think "I" is always the correct answer when used alongside the word "you". But if it's not the subject, it can't be "I". Remember that and you'll do fine!

Alright, let's continue.

"We've seen everything to see". This isn't too bad of a sentence grammatically, and you certainly could say this and nobody would say anything about it, but technically speaking it's a shortened version of a longer sentence. It would be better said as "We've seen everything that there is to see". To say it another way, "Everything that is worth seeing, we have seen." That's quite a statement! He's saying that in the whole world, he and his love have seen everything worth seeing. Wow! They must have been busy.

In the second line, he finishes this thought. "From Bangkok to Calgary". You're probably familiar with giving directions using this same structure. "I'm driving FROM Los Angeles TO New York." "I'm moving FROM the living room TO the kitchen". "The astronauts went FROM the earth TO the moon".

Although the singer is talking about two locations here, he's not talking about traveling FROM Bangkok TO Calgary. You might be more familiar with the form we're using here from the phrase "Everything from A to Z". What exactly does that mean? Well, everything from A to Z is...everything that there is. The idea here is that everything in the world is called something, and everything starts with a letter. So if you had a gigantic book that had a list of everything in the whole world, alphabetically, you could search through "everything...from A to Z". For example, "We can't get the car to start. We've tried everything from A to Z!" The idea here is that you've gone through every word that starts with every letter and tried every single thing that you can think of to get the car to start. You've tried ATTACKING the car and BERATING the car and CARESSING the car and DESTROYING the car and...well, you understand.

Another usage of this form could be in a commercial. You might see an advertisement for a kitchen supply store. The announcer might say "We have everything FROM refrigerators TO toasters TO counter tops TO ovens...and everything in between!" He's saying that in the realm of kitchen supplies, they have everything that you can think of. You can name multiple items in the list if you want, as examples of the types of things you're talking about.

This last example is the closest to what the singer is trying to say here. "We've traveled from Bangkok, Thailand, to Calgary, Alberta...and everywhere in between." He doesn't mean specifically everywhere in between Bangkok and Calgary, but rather he is naming two places that are on opposite sides of the earth from each other to say "We've been everywhere in the world!".

Can you think of some good examples of how you could use this phrase? Write some down and share them with us!

Moving on!

"The soles of your shoes, are all worn down"

If you remember last episode, we spent some time talking about the word "soul". Unfortunately for us, while this word sounds exactly same, it doesn't mean the same thing at all. The sole of the shoe is not the spiritual part of a shoe. The "sole" of the shoe is the bottom part of the shoe. This is the part of the shoe that touches the ground. When you walk, the part of your shoe that has to be the most tough and the most durable is the bottom, because it is taking the majority of the damage, or "wear". If you use anything for a long enough amount of time, eventually  it becomes less and less useful. Knives become less sharp, pillows become less soft, and the sole of a shoe becomes thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner, eventually getting holes in it. The process by which something becomes weaker, less useful, or loses pieces of itself, is called "wearing down". The word "down" here indicates that something is lost from the object. You might see holes start to appear in your shoes if you wear them for too long. If a knife blade is worn down, that means that the sharp part of the blade is gone. Whatever is left of it needs to be sharpened to be used effectively. Over the course of centuries, rocks are "worn down" by the wind and the rain, and they become smooth. When something has been worn down to the point that it is no longer useful, you can say that it is "worn out". It's reached the end of it's usefulness! Even a person can be "worn out". This usually means that you are very, very tired or exhausted. Perhaps you had a long day of hard, manual labor. You get home and collapse on the couch and say "I'm worn out! I can't do anything else today."

In this case, the singer is describing a shoe that is probably worn out, or almost worn out. He says the soles are "all worn down".

The word "all" here can be confusing, but it's simply an intensifier. The shoes aren't just worn down, they are "all worn down". In fact, because he's intensified the phrase "worn down", we can assume that the shoes are actually probably "worn out". The entirety of the sole is worn down or it is worn down as much as it can be worn down. This usage of "all" is fairly common, and can be used to add frustration or intensify what you're saying. "My cereal is all gone!" "My CD is all scratched up!" "The sky is all cloudy today..." "I'm all worn out!"

So let's simplify what the singer is trying to say here. He's saying that he and his love have walked so much, that their shoes are completely worn down. Pretty simply.

Our last few lines are also pretty simple.

"The time for sleep is now, but it's nothing to cry about, 'cause we'll hold each other soon, in the blackest of rooms"

There isn't a lot to talk about here. When the singer is talking about "the time for sleep", he's not literally talking about sleeping for the night, but using a very common metaphor for dying. It seems that our singer's love hasn't died yet, but that they are going to die soon. Our singer is singing them this one last song to comfort them. Even though dying is normally sad, our singer says "it's nothing to cry about". He's saying that even though they will be separated by death, don't worry! Why? They will hold each other soon...in the blackest of rooms. The blackest room is another reference to the "dark" from the song's title and the chorus. He is telling this love that he will join them soon.

One final note to leave you with, you'll notice he says the word "'cause" in the song. This is not a real word, but a shortening of the word "because". It's very common to use this shortening in spoken English, but please, please, please, please, please never write it!

It's been a lot of fun working through this song together with you and I hope you've enjoyed it as well! I hope you'll join us next time as we start a new song together! And I will talk to you then, have a great week.