Dream On
✔Depeche Mode Lyrics

Can you feel a little love?
Are you capable of experiencing love?

As your bony fingers close around me
Describing a sensation of eerie touch

Long and spindly
Describing the bony fingers mentioned before

Death becomes me
I am getting closer to death

Heaven, can you see what I see?
Asking if heaven can see the same things the artist sees

Hey you pale and sickly child
Addressing a specific person

You're death and living reconciled
Describing the person as embodying both death and life simultaneously

Been walking home a crooked mile
The person has been struggling through a difficult and challenging journey

Paying debt to karma
Attempting to make up for past actions through current behavior

You party for a living
Living life in a way that is focused on immediate pleasure and enjoyment

What you take won't kill you
Indicating that the risks being taken by the person are not immediately life-threatening

But careful what you're giving
Warning about the potential for harmful consequences of the person's actions

There's no time for hesitating
Time is limited and action is needed quickly

Pain is ready, pain is waiting
Urging the listener to prepare themselves for painful experiences

Primed to do its educating
The singer sees pain as an opportunity for learning

Unwanted, uninvited kin
Referring to pain as something that is always present and always unwanted

It creeps beneath your crawling skin
Describing a feeling of discomfort and unease

It lives without, it lives within you
Pain is a part of the human condition and cannot be separated from oneself

Feel the fever coming
The singer is physically reacting to pain

You're shaking and twitching
More physical reactions to pain

You can scratch all over
A physical response to discomfort, although it is ultimately ineffective

But that won't stop you itching
Describing a cycle of discomfort that cannot be escaped easily

Dream on
Encouraging the listener to keep dreaming and hoping for a better future

Blame it on your karmic curse
Suggesting that the listener may be dealing with negative consequences due to past actions

Oh shame upon the universe
Expressing frustration and despair with the events of the world

It knows its lines
Describing the pattern of negative events that seem to continue to happen

It's well-rehearsed
Implying that negative events are pre-planned and inevitable

It sucked you in, it dragged you down
Describing a situation where a person is trapped and cannot escape

To where there is no hallowed ground
There is no safe space or refuge from the negative consequences of life

Where holiness is never found
Suggesting that positive and holy things cannot exist in a place where negative events dominate

Dream on
Repeating the earlier encouragement to keep hoping and dreaming for a better future