In "Butterfly Wings" by Editors, fragile hopes and farewells scatter like dust, leaving only the ache of missed connection. The repeated question to a friend, asked after they have already left town, turns small talk into a plea for endurance. Black eyes ringed with color become butterfly wings, beautiful but impossibly delicate, and everything worth holding powders in the hand the moment it is touched. The song mourns how quickly presence, comfort, and meaning dissolve, yet it keeps asking how to get through it, as if the asking itself is the only way forward.
Butterfly Wings Lyrics by Editors
I’ll explore tonight
I’ll stumble on anything
A life inside a life
Fragile, paper thin
Do the audience get to their feet
Hey man, how are you doing
Is it so hard to just get through it
Those black eyes that colours surround
They’re just butterfly wings
They’re just butterfly wings
All the last goodbyes
Scattered on a wind
Reaching for the prize
Never seen again
Do the audience get to their feet
Hey man, how are you doing
Is it so hard to just get through it
Those black eyes that colours surround
They’re just butterfly wings
They’re just butterfly wings
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
Hey man, how are you doing
‘Cause you left town before I flew in
Those black eyes that colours surround
They’re just butterfly wings
They’re just butterfly wings
They’re just butterfly wings
They’re just butterfly wings
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
It just powders in my hand and then it’s not there
