Take It Back

"Take It Back" is a song from Pink Floyd's 1994 album, The Division Bell. While most apparently a love song, it can also be interpreted to be about Mother Nature, and how man abuses the Earth. This latter interpretation gains some credibility from the video, which seems to have been made with the issue very much in mind. Additionally, the album was named The Division Bell by Douglas Adams in exchange for the band contributing a sizeable donation to Save The Rhino International. The opening riff bears some similarities to Marillion's "The Release" (a b-side from the "Seasons End" sessions). The band's lead singer Steve Hogarth hints on the band's official website: "I always thought this song bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain Pink Floyd single... See you in court!..." Around the middle of the song, starting at around 03:04, between the main lyrics, can be heard children chanting lines from a nursery rhyme "Ring-O'-Roses": "...A pocket full of posies, atichoo, atichoo, we all fall down". (A strong allusion to the same nursery rhyme can be heard in Marillion's song "Forgotten Sons", from the first album, "Script for a Jester's Tear" (1983): "Ring-a-ring-o-roses, they all fall down...".)

[Instrumental Intro 0:00 - 1:08] [Verse 1] Her love rains down on me Easy as the breeze I listen to her breathing It sounds like the waves on the sea I was thinking all about her Burning with rage and desire We were spinning into darkness The earth was on fire [Chorus] She could take it back She might take it back someday [Verse 2] So I spy on her, I lie to her I make promises I cannot keep Then I hear their laughter rising, rising from the deep And I make her prove her love for me, I take all that I can take And I push her to the limit to see if she will break [Chorus] She might take it back, she could take it back some day [Instrumental Bridge] [Bridge] Ring-a-ring o’ roses A pocket full of posies A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down [Verse 3] Now I have seen the warnings, screaming from all sides It’s easy to ignore them, God knows I’ve tried All of this temptation, you know it turned my faith to lies Until I couldn’t see the danger or hear the rising tide [Chorus] She can take it back, she will take it back some day She can take it back, she will take it back some day She will take it back, she will take it back some day