17) Somebody That I Used To Know - Verse 1

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
I told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember


Hello and welcome to Learning English with Lyrics, the podcast where we break down song lyrics to help you improve your English. I am your host Jake, and today I am super excited to be starting on a brand new song! Before we get to that, if you've never listened to the podcast before, welcome! Before continuing this episode, I'd recommend pausing here amd listening to the episode titled "Introduction" before continuing, so that you can get a good idea of how this podcast works. And of course, if you are one of our regular listeners, thanks for listening! We'd love to hear from you, so if you've been enjoying the podcast, send us a message and let us know! You might even get a shoutout on the podcast! And please don't forget to tell your friends about us!

Okay, let's get started with today's episode!

As I said before, we're starting on a new song today, "Somebody That I Used To Know" by the artist Gotye. If you have never heard this song before, give it a listen before continuing the podcast. Don't worry, I'll wait.

I'm very excited about this song because, on the one hand, it's a good song, but on the other, there are SO many interesting words and phrases in this song. We're not going to get through this song quickly, but there is a lot to learn from this song. Let's jump right in on the first line.

"Now and then I think of when we were together"

Let's start with the phrase "Now and then". Are you familiar with this phrase? Don't be confused by the word "now" at the beginning of it. It doesn't mean literally right now. This phrase means the same thing as "sometimes" or "occasionally", although it is a little bit closer in meaning to "occasionally". Something that happens "now and then" doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. That is to say, you can be confident that it does happen, it just won't be consistent or regular. You might also hear the full phrase, "Every now and then". Don't think too hard about the words themselves, just know that the phrase means "occasionally".

Let me give some examples.

"I don't do it often, but every now and then I like to eat a entire box of cookies by myself."  I'd rather not say if this sentence is true or not. What it means is that occasionally I eat a box of cookies by myself. Probably not every day or every week though. It's probably not a planned time either, just whenever the right moment arrives. Let's look at another sentence.

"Sitting alone in the dark, every now and then I thought I saw something move." Notice that in this sentence, "every now and then" is referring to minutes or hours, instead of months like in the previous sentence. You'll have to look at the context to determine what time frame we are talking about. In this case, we know that someone doesn't sit alone in the dark for days and days at a time, so we assume this is happening in the course of one night.

Some otherm similar phrases you can use, are "every so often", "every now and again", "every once in a while", "from time to time", or "on occasion".  Check out our instagram this week, for more information on these phrases. These all mean roughly the same thing, so pick one or two that you like the most and start using them. They are great phrases that will really improve how comfortable you sound in the language!

Let's get back to our song.

"Now and then I think of when we were together"

So occasionally, our singer thinks about when he was "together" with this person. When he says "together" here, what do you think he means? At first glance, you might think that he means physically together in the same place. That is certainly one interpretation and it wouldn't be an incorrect reading of the sentence. However, if he were talking about simply being physically in the same place, usually we'd have some kind of indication of when this happened. Since we don't, we can assume he doesn't mean literally together, but figuratively. "When we were together" can also be used to mean "When we were a couple." or "When we were dating."

This is the sense that our singer means when he uses the word "together". But it's worth noting here that he's speaking about the past. "When we WERE together." So we know that they are no longer a couple. He's singing this song TO this person he used to know. If you listened to on our older series on "I Will Follow You into the Dark", you probably remember how we can refer to someone that we're dating. But how do you refer to somebody that you no longer date? I'll make it a little bit easier for you, we find out later in the song that he was dating a woman. So what should we refer to her as? If you said "Ex-girlfriend" great job! There are some other ways we can refer to somebody like this, but the most common is going to be "ex-girlfriend / boyfriend" or simply "ex". We'll mostly refer to her as "his ex" or "the singer's ex" in this series. So keep an eye out for that.

Alright, let's jump to the next line.

"Like when you said you felt so happy you could die"

So now he's recalling a very specific memory that occurred during the time that they were dating. The word "like" here begins an example. You can think of it as a replacement for the words "For example". Let me expand out the sentence a bit to make it a bit clearer for us.

"For example, that time when you told me that you felt so happy that you could die." Does that help make it a little bit clearer as to what he's talking about? He's saying that one time, when he was dating this woman, she told him that she felt so happy that she could die. What does that last bit mean? So happy she could die?

Basically, that's just a very dramatic expression of how happy she was. She was so happy, that she could die right then and it wouldn't even make her sad. Another possibility is that they are so happy that it would actually be best to die right now, because they will never be happier than at that moment. A final possibility is that they are so happy, that they physically cannot handle it, and they will die due to too much happiness. Those are some very strong feelings! It's no wonder our singer remembers this moment. So he's thinking about a time in the past, when he and this woman were dating, and she was extremely happy about the relationship. That seems good! But notice that he is still talking about the past. They aren't dating any more, so something must have happened. What happened between the time when his significant other felt so extremely happy, and now? Let's find out.

The next line says "I told myself that you were right for me"

We see here the first hints that something is not all good in this relationship. We'll start at the end of the sentence. What does it mean when someone is "right" for someone else? Quite simply, if you are "right" for someone, it means that you and them are a good match, or that you "fit" together. You can think of two puzzle pieces. If they can't connect because their edges don't match, they aren't "right" for each other, because they don't fit together. But if the puzzle pieces match, and connect without a problem, you could say that they are "right" for each other. Being "right" for one another, means that you fit together like two puzzle pieces. If someone is "wrong" for you, it means the opposite. Something about your relationship will not work.

In this case, he's saying that he "told himself" that she was right for him. Now this is a tricky phrase. Don't get this confused with "I said to myself". They are close, but not exactly the same thing. To say something to yourself is referring to your inner monologue. That is to say, talking to yourself, in your head. These are just normal, everyday thoughts.

To TELL yourself something, means that you are trying to convince yourself of something. This is usually something you don't fully believe, but that you WANT to believe. For example, if you're alone at night, and you're scared of the dark, you might "tell" yourself that there isn't any danger. Or if you're sitting in front of a box of cookies, you might "tell" yourself that you won't eat the whole box. But, let's be honest with ourselves. Every once in a while, we do eat the whole box. In our song, the singer WANTS to believe that he's met "the right person", so he "tells himself" that it's true, that she is "right" for him. Our next line continues the same thought, and tells us more about what went wrong with their relationship.

"I told myself that you were right for me...but felt so lonely in your company"

Immediately you might notice that we're missing our subject in this line. Let's fix it. "I felt so lonely in your company."

The first part is easiest enough to understand, "I felt so lonely". He felt alone. But what does "in your company" mean?

Your mind might immediately go to a company, such as Walmart or GE or IBM. Does his ex-girlfriend own a company that he works at and for some reason he feels lonely there? No, not quite. That could certainly work grammatically, but it's not what he means.

When we talk about being in someone's company, that means being together with them physically. We could reword the phrase as "I felt so lonely when I was with you" or "I felt so lonely when we were together". Be careful with that second one though! As we said earlier, that could also mean "while we were dating", which isn't exactly what he means here. He IS talking about the time period in which they were dating, but this particular line is talking about being in her presence, with her. Let's go on to our final line of the first verse.

"But that was love and it's an ache I still remember"

When he says "but that was love", what exactly does he mean? What exactly was love? He's referencing the previous lines. In his mind, love is convincing yourself that someone is right for you, even if you feel very lonely. In other words, he loved her so much, that the fact that he felt lonely even when he was with her did not matter.

He then says "it's an ache that I still remember." What is an ache? You might be familiar with the words "headache" or "stomachache". An "ache" is a type of a pain. Two words that we often use to describe "pain" are "sharp" and "dull". A sharp pain is like a sharp knife stabbing you. It hurts a lot, in a very particular location. A dull pain is a softer pain, like when you eat too much and your stomach hurts, or the pain of a bruise the day after you got the bruise. "Aches" are generally dull pains.

In our song, our singer describes this love as an "ache" that he still remembers. He might even still "feel" this ache. Somewhere inside of him, is a dull pain that won't go away. It's not a real physical pain, but a painful memory of this old relationship that was difficult for him. We call this particular kind of ache, heartache.

Well, that's all we have for today's episode. I hope that you don't have a headache after listening to it! Join us next time as we explore verse 2 of our song!

As always, you can find the transcript for this episode in the description. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate it and subscribe! We post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday! And of course, don't forget to tell your friends about us! We would love to hear from you! e pot even more English learning related content every day on Instagram, username "lelpodcast". There you can interact with us, as well as other English learners. There are weekly questions, as well as helpful images related to our podcast episodes. We’re also active on Reddit and Twitter under the same username, lelpodcast. Finally, if you have any questions, comments, critiques, or suggestions for songs, send us a message to any of our social media accounts, or to our email address "[email protected]". We hope to hear from you soon!