Twenty Years, Once More With feeling, B-Sides, (Placebo lyrics, explanations and press quotes)

PLACEBO WORDZ
Placebo Songs commented
by Brian, Steve and Stefan

PLACEBO

WYIN

BMM

SWG

MEDS

BATTLE

B-SIDES

COVERS

COLLAB.

A to Z

PRESS

LINKS

HOME

Twenty Years
(B-Sides)
Lyrics and explanation



Lyrics : Placebo

Twenty Years

There are twenty years to go
And twenty ways to know
Who will wear
Who will wear the hat

There are twenty years to go
The best of all I hope
Enjoy the ride
The medicine show
And thems the breaks
For we designer fakes
We need to concentrate
On more than meets the eye

There are twenty years to go
The faithful and the low
The best of starts
The broken heart, the stone

There are twenty years to go
The punch-drunk and the blow
The worst of starts
The mercy part, the phone

And thems the breaks
For we designer fakes
We need to concentrate
On more than meets the eye

Then it’s the breaks
For we designer fakes
But it's you I take
’Cause you're the truth not I

There are twenty years to go
A golden age I know
But all will pass
Will end too fast you know

There are twenty years to go
And many friends I hope
Though some may hold the rose
Some hold the rope

That's the end
And that's the start of it
That's the whole
And that's the part of it
That's the high
And that's the heart of it
That's the long
And that's the short of it
That's the best
And that's the test in it
That's the doubt
The doubt, the trust in it
That's the sight
And that's the sound of it
That's the gift
And that's the trick in it

You're the truth not I (x8)

Press Quotes

(Translation, quote in French here)

"The outcome of a eight years long writing collaboration between Brian and Paul Campion, lead singer of AC Acoustics, the song is, according to Brian,"pure epic melancholy, a reflection on the passage of time and mortality."Nothing more ! "But it's not necessarily a sad song." Shit!"

Brian Molko, Delabel Communiqué from Brian Molko on "Once More With Feeling" 2004

---

Q: "Placeboy700 asks – “What inspired the new song ‘Twenty Years’?”

Brian: One of my best friends in the world is Paul Campion who was the singer of AC Acoustics and who helped me out on the lyrics when had writers block for Every You Every Me on the second album. And whenever we’d sound check he’d always be playing this little guitar riff and singing the line ‘There are twenty years to go”. I always thought it would be an amazing AC Acoustic song but he never wrote it, and since he was such a good friend of mine, often when I’d pick up a guitar, to remind myself of him I’d play that riff and we all grew to fall in love with that record and always said that one day we were gonna flesh this out in to, you know, a proper song. It wasn’t until about six months ago that we actually started thinking about doing that, and three months ago since we actually did it… and it’s possibly our best work so far! [laughs] Y’know it’s really, really cool in that way…"

Brian Molko, session at AOL 2004

---

(Translation, quote in French here)

Les Inrocks : What about the two new songs (Twenty years and I do)?

Brian Molko : We put two new songs on the compilation to satisfy our fans' voracious appetite.
[...]
In hindsight, I think Twenty Years is perhaps one of our greatest tracks. It's our closest track to With Or Without You by U2, the ultimate song.

Brian Molko, Les Inrockuptibles, Novembre 2004

---

PLACEBO WORDZ HOME