Annotations for Time Is Running Out

Lyric: Bury it
 I won’t let you bury it
Annotation:
Burying something is a common way to hide something. In this case, what is being hidden is the crisis in a relationship

Lyric: Ooh-ooh-ooh, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
 Ooh-ooh-ooh, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
 Ooh-ooh-ooh, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah
Annotation:
This leads up to and eventually exposing you to one of the sickest high notes you’ll ever hear.

Lyric: I tried to give you up but I’m addicted
 Now that you know I’m trapped, sense of elation
 You’d never dream of breaking this fixation
 
 [Refrain]
 You will squeeze the life out of me
Annotation:
The other person is glad to have an andantage position in the relationship, and is euphoric to see the narrator can’t end it. Even if the other person is aware of that, no changes will happen. The narrator feels he’s wasting all energy due to the pressure of the relationship, symbolized by the squeezing.

Lyric: I think I’m drowning
Annotation:
‘Drowning’ can be used to refer to an emotional feeling within a relationship.  The feeling of drowning most often refers to a fear that the relationship is dangerous or hard to escape.  Might also add that the relationship is unsustainable; insufficient oxygen levels means that the water’s bliss cannot be appreciated for long.

Lyric: I won’t let you smother it
Annotation:
Smother implies to furiously deny his need for space, and stop discussion of it any time it comes up. This could also be seen as a reference to the earlier lines of ‘drowning’ and ‘asphyxiation’. The narrator feels as though when he tries to escape one form of his lover’s toxicity, she simply comes up with another way to drown him out.

Lyric: I won’t let you murder it
Annotation:
He won’t let her murder the issue, whether that be a quick and silent death or a big bloody fiasco, to stop this situation at hand.

Lyric: Our time is running out
 Our time is running out
 You can’t push it underground
 You can’t stop it screaming out
Annotation:
He’s telling her that it will not last between the two of them and she can’t do anything about it. He will break free.

Lyric: You will be the death of me
 Yeah, you will be the death of me
Annotation:
This person is slowly killing him, she’s not good for him but he can’t stay away from her. Also, death can be seen as a psychological matter: she’s preventing his expression, he can’t have a normal life while he’s needing her. In light of the music video, this may also pertain to the US administration’s systematic suppression of some truths/demographics. Notably, the band is circled by a board of unresponsive US leaders (denoted by their  shirt pins) as they protest.

Lyric: You’re something beautiful, a contradiction
 I wanna play the game, I want the friction
Annotation:
Here, it’s pretty obvious that the narrator is trapped into a toxic relationship, in which he’s in love with the person but he also knows that he/she is somehow dangerous for his health (if we refer to the drowning/asphixiated passage, physical health, but in the case of a relationship, mental health). Even if the narrator is aware of the danger, he wants to stay with this person : “I wanna play the game”. “I want the friction” may be a reference to the fact that he/she wants to confront this person, maybe in a fight or in a “game” in which they fight each other before ending in a state of temporary “hapiness”, before starting that “fight game” again. This kind of behaviour is very common on unhealthy relationships : the two persons are constantly fighting but they’re too attracted to each other to take their distances. This sentence may also be a sexual reference thought. (Do you need a picture for that?)

Lyric: I wanna break this spell that you’ve created
Annotation:
He’s addicted to this person, and they’re so charming that it’s almost like it was a spell cast on him that makes him so intrigued  in them. However, he wants the addiction to cease, because it is slowly killing him.

Lyric: Asphyxiated
Annotation:
To Asphyxiate is to die from depriving them of air. As mentioned in the line before, “drowning” involves deprivation of air, so this is just another way to put that.

Lyric: Yeah, you will suck the life out of me
Annotation:
On a more serious note, this isn’t solely a sexual reference, this line is meant to be a double entendre. The troubles he’s having with his lover are crushing and hurting him, but at the same time he’s so enraptured by her sexual energy and their mutual passion that he can’t bring himself to end it.

