Lyrics Analysis

A quote from Tom Odell to describe the meaning, purpose and narrative of this song is used. In an interview Tom Odell explains  "Another Love’ is a confusing one; it’s not a traditional love song. The song, for me, is about trying—really trying with all your heart—to be with someone else and you want to be with someone else. The song was written talking to this girl that I really wanted to be with, and I was trying to work out why I couldn't be with her. And it’s funny, people sometimes listen to it as [though] I'm more talking about the last romance."


I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care
But it's so cold and I don't know where
He wants to make his girl feel special by taking her out for dinner, but he comes up with the excuse that it’s too cold outside and he doesn’t know where to take her.
By saying it is really cold, Tom may be trying to say that his heart is cold because he does not have the love of her ex anymore to warm him up

I brought you daffodils in a pretty string
But they won't flower like they did last spring

Ancient Greeks gave flowers as offerings to their gods/goddesses. Different flowers had symbolic meanings, and the tradition of flower-giving probably originated from this ritual.

Giving a bouquet of flowers is already a nice gesture. But taking the time to arrange it and decorate the bouquet is even more symbolic—it reveals his devotion and desire to please his lover.

They don’t hold the same resemblance of love he had for the girl before her, or the love won’t grow like it did with the other girl.

And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright
I'm just so tired to share my nights
I wanna cry and I wanna love
But all my tears have been used up

He wants to show affection to the girl he is with, but he is just not over his ex to do it.

On another love, another love
All my tears have been used up
On another love, another love
All my tears have been used up
On another love, another love
All my tears have been used up

He wants to feel something, or anything but all his tears have been used up on his ex.

And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight
But my hands been broken, once too many times

If anyone harms his girl, he’d want to defend her

But then he thinks he’d be no good. This can also mean he fought for his ex a lot of times and now he is really tired of fighting.

So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude
Words they always win, but I know I'll lose

Since he can’t fight the same as he used to, he will use his voice to defend his love. He knows he can win this way, but in the end he will still feel tired and defeated.

It’s not that he’s fed up, it’s that he can’t summon the willpower to win right now.

And I'd sing a song, that'd be just ours
But I sang 'em all to another heart

His heart is still with his ex. Even when he writes his new love a song, the lyrics were really for his ex. He’s still very much in love with another love.

PROPOSED SUGGESTION: It’s not exactly to an ex. When he says ‘another heart’, and ‘another love’, it’s for someone who changed. The same person, only she changed.

And I wanna cry I wanna learn to love
But all my tears have been used up

He has been through so much that he no longer feels he can love and cry like he once could.

He needs the love of the woman he remembers and not the woman she became, and that is who he has been holding on to as well as referencing too. But he cant leave her because even though he needs love he wants the one his “heart is thinking of”