I Will Follow You into the Dark - Verse 1

Love of mine, someday you will die
But I'll be close behind and I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark

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 will be starting on a new song, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. If you've never listened to this podcast before, I recommend pausing this episode right now, and going back to the episode titled "Introduction" before continuing. Additionally, if you've never heard this song before, I highly suggest listening to it at least one time before continuing this episode. Alright, it's time to get started! Let's jump right in.

The first line states: "Love of mine, someday you will die"

"Love of mine" might sound a little bit funny if you've never heard it, but it's just a very romantic and literary way to say "Person that I love". The singer is using it as a poetic way to talk about his significant other. If you aren't familiar with the term "significant other", it also means the person that somebody loves romantically, but it's a very general way of speaking about them. It could be a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband or a wife. So why did I use it here? If we don't know the gender of the person who we are talking about, "significant other" has the advantage of being gender neutral, which is useful in the case of our singer. It's also useful if you're talking to a group! The third situation that it's very useful, is if we do know the gender, but we don't know the level of the romantic relationship. Are they dating casually or are they married? In either case, using "significant other" allows us to be polite, while still talking about a romantic relationship. Since I didn't know who exactly who the singer is singing about, I used "significant other" to be polite.

Okay, now that that's cleared up, let's get back to the phrase "Love of mine" again. The word "Love" used here is not the verb "love", as in "I love you". It's the noun love, but confusingly it's not referring to the concept of love either. In this case, "love" means "the person that I love".  You might have heard the phrase "My love" or "the love of my life". These are more common ways to refer to your significant other than "love of mine". However, it means roughly the same thing. It feels a bit stronger, and it is a lot more poetic and literary, but it means pretty much the same thing.  I wouldn't recommend using the phrase "love of mine" in everyday conversation,  but there are other ways we can use the words "of mine" to add emphasis, that are a lot more common.

For example, I could say to you "You would not believe what this dog of mine did today!" We see two interesting things here. First, by using the word "this", I'm adding distance between myself and the dog. I'm detaching myself from him emotionally. However, by putting "of mine" at the end, I am then reluctantly admitting that he is my dog and I am responsible for him. It's an interesting phrase that expresses frustration or exasperation with some interesting wordplay. It's a very common joke to twist the same phrase around the other way as well. Instead of "of mine" we can say "of yours". For example, if my son said something bad, I might say to my wife "Did you hear what that son of yours said?!" The joke here is that he is my son as well, but I'm distancing myself from him and assigned the responsibility to her. I'm implying that his bad behavior was learned from her, and that I am innocent of it!

This is a great phrase to add into your vocabulary. You can use it for almost anything you or someone else has responsibility or possession of, whether it be a pet, a child, your computer, or your attitude!

Let's get back to the song. What do we know so far? We know he's talking to his significant other, and he's telling her that someday she is going to die. Ok, this is some dark stuff, but it's getting interesting. Let's go to the next line.

"but I'll be close behind. I'll follow you into the dark."

We'll start with "I'll be close behind." I'm sure you know what it means to be behind something or someone, but the word "close" here is more interesting than you might think. "Close" means being near something or someone. If you are "close behind" someone, it means that you are to their rear, but also very near to them. In this case, close behind also adds an element of time and movement to the sentence. To be "close behind" someone implies that they were or that they are moving, and that you are following them closely. And to be close to somebody who has started before you have started, you have to move quickly. The word "close behind" used in this way is referring more to "time" than it is to distance. Instead of saying "I'll be close behind" he could have also said "I will be there soon" or "I will join you quickly" or "It won't be long until I am where you are".

So let's put it altogether. He's saying that he will follow her very quickly...when she dies. Is he saying he's going to kill himself? I don't think so. Although this song is talking about death, it's speaking very romantically. Instead, we can think of it as though he will be so heartbroken or sad that his love has died, that he will naturally die soon afterwards.

This leads us to the second half, "I'll follow you into the dark", which you might notice is the title of the song. He will follow his love into the dark...but what is "the dark". Literally, the dark is anywhere that there is no light. If you leave your home at night, you go into "the dark". If the power goes out, you are in "the dark". The "dark" is blackness, no light at all. But the dark has other meanings as well. Very commonly, the dark is used to mean "the unknown". Just as you cannot see when it is dark, if you don't know something, you are "in the dark" about that thing. Most commonly, if other people know something and they don't tell you that thing, you might say "they left me in the dark"! Light represents knowledge, and dark represents ignorance. You might be familiar with the term "enlighten". If you are "enlightened" or someone "enlightens" you, you are given knowledge. It was dark in your mind, but now there is light!

But in this case, "the dark" represents death,or more specifically, the unknown of what happens after we die. Perhaps he thinks that there is nothing that happens after death, so for him, death is just darkness. But he'd rather be in complete darkness with his love, then in the light without his love.

He continues, describing death, or more specifically, the "afterlife" in poetic terms.

Our next line states "No blinding light, or tunnels to gates of white"

Both of these phrases are what dying people have often described seeing as they are dying. Both of these images are also commonly connected to heaven.

A "blinding light" is a light that's so bright you cannot see, you are blind. It's the complete opposite of dark, but ironically it has the exact same effect. You can't see anything. Often, heaven is described as being very bright, and a blinding light could indicate heaven.

A tunnel is a path through something, usually a mountain. If a road needs to get to the other side of a mountain, it can go over the mountain or through the mountain. Oftentimes, it's easier just to go through is. So we drill a tunnel. When people are dying, often they report seeing darkness except for a light at the very end of a dark tunnel. The light often represents heaven, or at the very least, peace. A phrase that is commonly used is "the light at the end of the tunnel", which means "the end of a difficulty". If I say "This project has been really hard, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!" that means I can see the end, my troubles are almost over!" If you say "I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel!" that means you are in a difficulty, but you don't see an end to it anytime soon. Think of something difficult in your life. Do you see the "light at the end of the tunnel" or just darkness?

The "gates of white" that he mentions are a reference to heaven. In Christian imagery, you enter heaven through "gates that are white as pearls".

But the singer isn't saying these things in a hopeful way. In fact, he's saying he doesn't expect to see blinding light or tunnels to heaven!

All he is expecting is darkness. This sounds pretty sad isn't it? But the last line of the verse is a bit more hopeful.

He ends the verse with the phrase "just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark."

The word "just" at the beginning of the phrase means "only". He's saying that there will not be pearly gates or bright, heavenly light. Only two people holding hands. And their hands are clasped tight, which means that they are hooked, or connected together. They aren't going to let go of each other's hands.

And as they sit, what are they doing? They are "waiting for the hint of a spark". What does this mean?

A spark is the smallest part of a fire. If you divide fire into the tiniest part that is still considered fire, that is a spark. Every fire starts with a spark. Fire can often be used to describe passionate love, but usually love starts out with a small "spark" of interest. You might have heard the phrase "sparks flew" or "there were sparks" to describe the first time a couple met each other.

A "hint" is a clue. An indication of something. If I have a surprise present for you, and you ask me what it is, I'm not going to tell you, but I might give you a hint. For example, if my surprise gift to you was a car, I might say "It's red and very fast!" or "It's one of your favorite things!" or "You can use it to get around town!". I'm not telling you exactly what it is, but I am telling you  little things about it. Things that "hint" to what it is.

A hint of something is similar. It is a small part of something. For example, if someone is very sad and you told them a joke, you might see a "hint of a smile". Which is to say, they didn't smile exactly, but you saw a tiny bit of one. The first "hints of dawn", mean those first glows or lights right before the sun comes up. They "hint at" something that is about to happen. They aren't the sunrise, but you know the sunrise is coming.

So "the hint of a spark" is a small clue to the smallest part of a fire or light. He's saying in this huge darkness, they are looking around for something that tells them that light is going to come. They are hopeful!

That's all for this week. I hope that we've managed to "spark" Next time when we'll talk about the chorus of "I Will Follow You into the Dark"! I hope you'll join us again!

As always, you can find the transcript for this episode in the description. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us and subscribe! We try to post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, so check back often!  If you'd like even more content, you can follow us on Instagram. Our username is "lelpodcast". If you have any questions, comments, critiques or suggestions for songs, feel free to reach out to us on social media, or at our email address, "lelpodcast@gmail.com". We hope you'll join us again.