This is an interesting section of the verse. The protagonist is being hit on by the woman, and he knows this. She is irresistible. He is thinking about how to decline her, but in his efforts to decline. He simply states the last line, “Really love, it’s fine.” In his process to decline, he gave his consent to commit adultery.

This could also be interpreted as how married couples will take off their wedding rings when having the intention to cheat on their partners, in hopes that removing the ring will remove them of the guilt.

Alex is saying that this is dangerous because with the illusion that there’s nothing stopping them, they’ll make mistakes throughout the night that they might not have made otherwise.

well, in the book she wants to go back home from the minute she arrives in Oz

Dorothy’s return to Kansas, or the realisation that she wants to go home, doesn’t come from the realisation that Kansas is better than the new place. It is allegorical: Dorothy tires of fantasy and dellusion, and matures to the point of being capable of facing reality, even when it is far from ideal.

this lyric has been linked to Andy Nicholson leaving the band, kind of speaks for itself

Why do you out Tbr after some of these?

i thought she been dulled ^^

just as another user said, it’s not a reference to “New York, New York”, but the whole song is about someone who’s “running from something”.
The Chorus is the reply from the said person. This person answer the Verses saying that he/she/it don’t want to sleep in the city that never wakes up and is blinded by nostalgia. It’s a metaphore for a city who’s citizen live in the “prestige” (or something like that) that the city once had, without realizing that the world kept spinning and things changed, while the town became “trapped in time” because of this mentality.

Recapturing the idea of Dorothy in her (probably made up) journey to Oz, the idea is that the object is so consumed by this idea of a life she wishes to live, that she can practically be said to be dreaming. Her obsession, which searches for something – probably in the past, as Turner states “nostalgia” as being an element of her irrationality – has a feel to it that appears to drag on forever: she gives the impression that she might never wake up from her dream.

Given that the band is from the UK, and that London is a city covered in monuments to past glories as well as a magnet for young people, I think it more likely that the city that never wakes up is London. It would be stretch to think of any American city as ‘blinded by nostalgia’ – usually the opposite criticism is leveled that US cities discard their own history.

I dont think the exact city is important, however. The idea is a universal one of a person leaving home for the Big City only to find themselves bored and disappointed.

Also sleeping could be seen as a temporary death, contrasting with a wake. In the context of a song about belonging and home, this could be seen as a subtext of asking who wants to die in a place where no one will mourn you, echoing the general idea of there being no place like home.

I think there’s a little but of sarcasm here. He calls this little girl “Houdini”, the master of escaping, but she’s just being hasty, without a real purpose.