Annotations for Unintended

Lyric: You could be the one I’ll always love
Annotation:
The tone here is so intense, it’s like looking into the person’s eyes and saying this to them. It’s hypnotic, it’s sensual, and it expresses an incredibly deep desire to be with this person, a deep love. It’s quite innocent and pure, there’s nothing shallow about it. It’s a love song.

Lyric: You could be the one I’ll always love
 You could be the one who listens
 To my deepest inquisitions
Annotation:
“You could be the one I’ll always love”  could mean that the narrator is thinking about a future relationship with whoever he’s talking about. It might be unrequited as it says “you could be” and not “you are”. “You could be the one who listens to my deepest inquisitions” could quite simply mean that the person he’s talking to might understand him in a way that no one else can. He wants someone to talk to and someone who could listen to him.

Lyric: She could never be as good as you
Annotation:
This line shows that Matt is in his transition period between romances. Instead of stating that his new love surpasses his former love, he remembers his former love as inferior to the new girl. It’s almost that part of him wishes his former love was a better, more ideal woman now that he knows a different kind of romance exists.

Lyric: First there was the one who challenged
 All my dreams and all my balance
Annotation:
Referring to one of Matt’s former loves. Matt wrote the lyrics to the song when he was 18 or 19. The words came up after a  phone conversation with a girl he was into that moment. Considering his young age he possibly compares this girl with one of his few former girlfriends, probably his first love, who definitely pulled him out of his comfort zone.

Lyric: You should be the one I’ll always love
Annotation:
The change from ‘could’ to ‘should’ here implies that the narrator has made their mind up and definitely wants their love interest to become their love.

Lyric: Before you
Annotation:
This emphasizes that Matt’s partner totally changed his life in the song. The use of past tense in the previous line, “life I had before,” as well as this line, shows a clear line between his old life with the “one who challenged all my dreams and all my balance,” and the new one with his partner.

Lyric: You could be my unintended
 Choice to live my life extended
Annotation:
The song was written about a girl, for whom Matt had unintended feelings,  after a phone call with her: The song I wrote about the girl was written in the studio after a phone conversation with her. We called it “Unintended” because it came out of nowhere, and I didn’t mean it to happen, all of these feelings for this girl". Matt was unexpectedly saved by this girl, who entered his life all of the sudden and gave him new hope. These lines, however, could have multiple meanings: either the narrator’s partner loving him is giving him a reason to live instead of committing suicide; or it could be a metaphor for how their lives intertwines to become one, longer life, a bond so close it makes them figuratively one person; or the love he had for this girl enlightened him in an almost religious way, giving him hope for a life after death, thus a “life extended”.

Lyric: I’ll be there as soon as I can
 But I’m busy mending broken
 Pieces of the life I had before
Annotation:
Matt is in the process of forgetting his previous girlfriend, mentioned in the second verse (“She could never be as good as you”), with whom he broke up. As soon as he is able to move on from the past, he will reunite with the person he’s recently found, “the one he’ll always love”. This could also refer to leaving behind demons of the past. In particular, these verses are sort suggest the protagonist is just not ready for a relationship, he’s afraid of what the object of his love would think if she sees what he is right now. He is telling her to wait for him, because now he’s not even sure if he’s worthy of love.

