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Reference to Talib Kweli’s “Get By”. The background vocal during this lyric is from Kweli’s hit too.

“Get By”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVtpXvzzXiA

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Help I’m Alive is about being paralyzed by the expectations of others (like peers or audiences, but Haines’s own expectations of herself as well) and the anxiety those expectations bring on.

Frontwoman Emily Haines discussed this track with Drowned in Sound:

This song is the first of many that I wrote on the piano during my time in Buenos Aires. It started out as a ballad but really came to life once we bumped up the tempo. My favorite part of the song is the kick drum sound in the middle section, it sounds like the drums are being played in a cathedral in hell."

Shaw told Rhapsody:

I imagine our songs as people. “Help I’m Alive” punched “Gimme Sympathy” in the face and jumped in front of it. We had this image of me coming into the studio one day and the back door was wide open and there were only nine singles there, and “Help I’m Alive” had run out and was streaking down the neighborhood."

Acoustic Version

A few weeks after the song’s initial release, an acoustic version – with Shaw on acoustic guitar and Haines on piano – was released as a single.

This has been featured on the TV shows One Tree Hill (episode: “Believe Me, I’m Lying,” 2009), The Vampire Diaries (episode: “The Night of the Comet,” 2009), 90210 (episode: “Age of Inheritance,” 2010), and Grey’s Anatomy (episode: “If Only You Were Lonely,” 2012).

This peaked at #21 on the band’s home chart, the Canadian Hot 100. It was also their first track to break into the US charts, where it landed at #17 on the Alternative Songs chart and #30 on the Rock Songs chart.

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Many have a difficult time handling the committment that comes with long-term, deep relationships. Thus, if you’ve constantly had that happen, you would no longer be surprised when your (ex)lover leaves. What would surprise you, however, is if your relationship got deep and your lover stayed.

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The artist worries that skeletons in his closet will scare away the girl he’s in love with.

The line could also communicate genuine curiosity. The speaker may want the answer to this question in order to figure out how judgmental this person is. After all, every saint has a past, every saint has a future.

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Reference to the movie Monster’s Ball, which features Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton

Monster ball can also mean “a lot of cocaine” which ties in with the line about snorting.

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The crooked tooth is symbolic of his flaws. Cudi has created this seemingly lavish, glamourous lifestyle (designed with the aforementioned stencil) but in reality, he travels too much, longs for human relationships, and is progressively receding into insanity as demonstrated by his psychotic laughter at the image in the mirror.

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This collabo with the Cole-meister deals with fake friends who try to call you by your government name – oh, and sharks!

Is J. Cole’s verse the hottest on the album?

It share’s a sample with Seattle Rapper Sol’s track “Spliff”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6otWZsU9Tw

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The girls hair is red like singer Rihana’s hair.

Notably the cover art for this songs single depicts a girl with red hair:

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The classic response from an MC’s significant other when they tell them they are are going away for a long time to go on tour or pursue their dreams is “go ahead and leave”, because they will really and truly be making a decision in favour of music instead of the person for whom it is felt that they should love more.

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Organized Noize is the production group that produced all of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. Since Southernplayalistic was the group’s debut album, Big Boi and Dré will always stay loyal to Organized Noize for showing them the ropes.

The Organized Noize crew consists of Rico Wade, Ray Murray, and Patrick “Sleepy” Brown.

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