I think the song is about his ex SOKO. Because then there would be a better connection to the line where he sings about Paris

I think paired with the before line “she can read, she’s bad” is stating the woman is rebellious, and that’s what drew him to her. Women weren’t supposed to read in old days, and I think that’s what that alludes to. Now here, he is realizing how dangerous and self destructive her actions actually are.

I think the fist two lines suggest that it is her who is speaking. She is saying that she is getting old and poor, so it is going to be different. She will never be as young and pretty as she is used to be, and he then states that she is “stabbing herself in the neck” thinking that. A metaphor for saying that she is slowly killing herself by being so pessimist and not appreciating what she has.

As we age and become wiser, nothing is as shocking as it was before. Never seeing this face again, the thought shockingly more painful then imagined? His wisdom and struggles had not prepared him for this? An IV drug user runs out of veins. If they survive there habit/disease long enough, then eventually are quite litteraly stabbing themselves in the neck. This amongst addicts is often represeing end of days, a last resort. Now this could be a description of how frustrated and hopeless this loss would/will be to him. I had always felt that he’d meant The stabbing yourself in the neck is possible exactly that. Connect with addiction possibly leading to this person he speaks going away too soon. Nothing prepares an addict for the day they’re looking at themselves in a mirror, while stabbing themselves in the neck. Still a surprisingly shocking moment for the individual that’s not easily shocked!

Author (stuck in) reflecting past relationship – when he was hurting the other with his attitude (“She could read she’s bad”), probably because he was young and had some ideals into which the other would not fit. But now he’s alone and it’s suddenly hard for him and what makes it even more harder – he’s facing challenges of aging, e.g. health issues, and he misses the presence of the (significant) other to support him, so he feels pathetic about himself and starts thinking about hurting and killing himself, at the same time reconsidering, how good was the other for him.

This echoes with lines from the next song from the album TOTBL “NYC”:
- “I’m sick of spending these lonely nights training myself not to care”
and
- “I know you’ve supported me for a long time
Somehow I’m not impressed”

I always thought ‘'Stabbing yourself in the neck’‘ was about somebody sabotaging themselves and sort of condemning themselves.

“But it’s different now that I’m poor and aging I’ll never see this face again.” You go stabbing yourself in the neck. The “but” established this is an argument. The girl he’s talking to is not (hypothetically) dead yet.

For someone who uses this phrase often, “stabbing” ones self “in the neck” is not so much a literal “stabbing.” It’s another way to establish a self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecy.

He’s talking the girl down from the edge of suicide. She’s arguing that her beauty has faded, her life and quality of life will never be the same again – so what’s the point of living?

He’s telling her she’s stabbing herself in the neck (more so) by being certain that things will never get better again.

He’s trying to save her life and make her see nothing is wrong with her but her nihilistic perspective.

The song is about a model who committed suicide. So I think a possible way to interpret this line is that the model was so overwhelmed with the media writing things about her that she eventually ended her life.

chicken wing chicken wing cheese bad

I think this annotation doesn´t have anything to support it. By “She can read” yes maybe it means that the girl can read Pauls mind but I think in the context that was given by the first verse “We can cap the old lines” (taking account that Paul is talking about lines of a text) it makes more sense to say that the woman can read the lines that Paul wants to cap in the first verse. “she´s bad” taking in mind that Paul wants to cap those lines or in a literal way the past and she can still read the lines or bring out the past, the girl is hurting Paul or maybe the relationship by bringing out the past.

She can read is meant to say that she’s smart enough to have been rebellious.

In a radio interview, the band said they wrote the song after they saw a news report about the recent death of a model in NY.

The lyrics “lost” and “faded” could be referring to the fact that the girl that Paul is reminiscing about is no longer alive. Which is why he refers to her in past tense throughout the song.

The word “salt” in the first line refers to tears (because tears have a salty taste) and by using this particular word Paul says that the girl has been crying, that´s why she has salt on her lips, and Paul wants to eat her tears but not in a literal way. By “eat” he means that he wants to absorb her sadness and make her happy. But again by talking about their lips and eating something off of them he kinda is introducing an erotic idea so Banks doesn´t only wants to make her happy, Paul is attracted to her in a physical way.

The line “we can cap the old lines” it´s refering to actual text lines because in the pre-chorus Paul sings “she can read”. The pre-chorus gives context to the first verse by explaining that “she can read” the lines that Paul says they should cap and as it is have been said the old lines is a metaphor about the past.