Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional

Album: So Impossible (2001)

Charted: 60

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Songfacts®:

This is a love song about giving your heart to someone so they can choose what they wish to do with it: "My heart is yours to fill or burst to break or bury or wear as jewelry whichever you prefer."

It also alludes to a sexual encounter: "Stay quiet stay near stay close they can't hear so we can get some."
The song describes a very memorable and passionate date. Dashboard Confessional leader Chris Carrabba described it on the group's MTV Unplugged appearance as being about "the best date I ever had."
This song picked up steam after it was used in the pilot episode of the TV series One Tree Hill in 2003. The next season, it was used in the episode "Lifetime Piling Up."
The video, which shows stylized footage of the band performing the song, was directed by Nzingha Stewart, whose credits include the "Got Your Money" video for Ol' Dirty Bastard and an episode of the TV series Pretty Little Liars.
"Hands Down" first appeared as an acoustic track on the 2001 Dashboard Confessional EP So Impossible. An electric version was included on the band's 2003 album A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar.
Chris Carrabba wrote many melancholy songs for the 2000 Dashboard Confessional album The Swiss Army Romance and its 2001 follow-up, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, making him an exemplar of emo moodiness. This hopeful track bucked that trend, which was his goal, as he felt he was being unfairly branded.
Before Taylor Swift became synonymous with diaristic country-pop confessionals, she was taking notes from a different corner of the emotional spectrum. "I was the most intensely impacted by emo music," she shared with The New York Times. "Dashboard Confessional, Chris Carrabba, Fall Out Boy, Pete Wentz's lyrics... how they take a common phrase and just twist the knife of it."

"The specificity of 'Hands Down' by Dashboard Confessional," Swift added incredulously. "I would finish reading a line and be like, 'Oh my god!'"

Comments: 4

Shayna from Richmond, VaI love this song Im seeing them live in december and cant wait!
James from Manila, Philippineshris carrabba is one the most brilliant songwriter in the world i love the way he deliver his words and music..... i wonder why the other songwriters don't care about the fact of the song they just did and sometimes it sucks...... i prefer Dashboard's album "the places that you've come to fear the most" -Joses Mark Patapat Cavite, Phil
Mary from Dublin, Irelandhe also announced before playing this that it is about the best night of his whole life
Azizah from Cape Town , South AfricaOn MTV unplugged, Chris said that this song is about the best date he ever had

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