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“Trade Mistakes” finds Brendon lamenting the mistakes he made in a relationship, wishing he could reverse them. While they were together, he probably committed numerous vices, ones he now hates himself for committing.

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“The Ballad of Mona Lisa” tells the story of a man dealing with two moral struggles at once. He has spent the night with a prostitute, and must deal with the guilt that comes with the decision. At the same time, he is trying to determine whether or not he has any morality at all.

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“Northern Downpour” is the fourth single from Panic! at the Disco’s second album, Pretty. Odd..

It’s a somber song about love, touring, and everything else that’s important to them. It reminisces on both the good and bad times. The song was written by guitarist Ryan Ross — it was his final single with the band.

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This could refer to the fact that, when you shout at the top of your lungs, you are most likely doing it for a passionate reason. The person he’s referring to is the epitome of his passion – they deserve all of his love.

Air is at the literal top of someone’s lungs at the trachea. The trachea is at the top of our lungs so air can travel down; we need it to breathe out. The larynx is so we can talk, without the larynx or trachea, we couldn’t talk.

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At this point, it would seem as though the rope would be him trying to save her. The anchor would keep her grounded in what he would feel is a good place for her.

But as it turns out, he wouldn’t save her, or he realized that saving her would have not really been the right thing. He would have held her down and that might not have a been good thing. Even though there’s this admission, the chorus repeats after the bridge, suggesting that there’s still pain before he finally lets go of this relationship.

While some critics dismissed the lyrics as being generic of young love, the lyrics at least make sense. Furthermore, the song does bring forth symptoms of depression that could result from failed love.

Brendon’s singing: this is hardly the greatest story ever told. with lightning in my head to be gone to the world'

He’s suggesting at first that he actually wanted her. He felt as though it was his job to save her from death or at least he wishes that’s what would have happened. The lyrics then transition in a way that suggests him recalling what actually happened which was him killing her. He can still picture it in his mind, living it over and over again which explains why the chorus repeats itself in the end. He will always think of the incident and be guilty. He wanted to save her but made the situation worse.

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The guilt of his mistakes is keeping him awake at night, thinking about what the relationship could have been if he had been a better person. People sometimes picture sheep jumping a fence and count them to fall asleep, which Brendon might benefit from. However, he’d rather send some sheep to the person he hurt, since they’re probably up late thinking about how he upset them.

There’s a slight dilemma seen here — Brendon sings about staying awake until he either trades it for sheep, which he can’t do, or he forgets them, but he knows very well that he won’t forget them very easily.

Interestingly, The Young Veins, the band Ryan Ross and Jon Walker created after leaving P!ATD, mention counting sheep in their song “Everyone But You:”

She comes to me when I dream
I’m tired of counting sheep to see her
I sleep because I need her

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Here there is a dichotomy, or duality, at play. He may view this rope as a symbol of help and stability, but it can easily turn into a noose.

Give a man enough rope, and he’ll hang himself

It is implied here that he felt the need to save her and perhaps that was his mistake, because he was her downfall. The rope symbolizes hanging yourself and a life line for help.

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The narrator’s lover is drawn to people who will never yawn. Yawning is often associated with boredom, although it can have several causes. She wants to be with someone who is interesting, not someone who will spend their time waiting around for something to happen to them.

This could be a reference to a line from Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel On the Road:

…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing…"

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The world sucks, but we can’t change it. There will always be “a bad side” of things, so we get used to it and there will be help along the way to make it home. As Urie explains in Coup de Main:

That was a Ryan and Jon [Walker]—that was a Ryan lyric. That song, we all knew we wanted to do a tribute song and make it more about fans, but it was more just about love and trying to tie that all in together. It’s easier when you make it about a specific thing. It kind of sneezed out, it wasn’t incredibly difficult to write, but that one held a lot of meaning especially when we started playing it live, then it took on an even deeper meaning and I’m just grateful for that. It was good.

This line was also a line lyricist Ryan Ross told Brendon Urie to pay “special attention” to, as it means so much to him. Therefore, on the rare occasions that Brendon sings this song nowadays (after Ryan left the band), he cannot help but cry when he gets to this line.

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He says that this person is fragile but playful, not meaning to hurt, but their lips are capable of saying things about the past that have the capability to really damage him and upset him. By saying that the words are like moths upon old scarves, he means that the words are eating away slowly and leaving holes in his heart.

This person may be a Capricorn, which could hold some significance to Ryan. It may simply be a way to refer to this person without naming them. Ryan’s girlfriend at the time, Keltie Colleen, was born in January, which is mostly Capricorn — however, her date of birth falls in Aquarius.

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