“Fade Into You” is the most popular and well-known song from the band Mazzy Star, an alternative/dream-pop group from Santa Monica, California who were most active in the early to mid 90s.
I loved this band growing up, but they never really caught on, apart from this one song. It, however, was huge.
“Fade Into You” is the first track on the album So Tonight That I Might See, which was released in October of 1993.
It reached number three on the Billboard Modern Rock chart in 1994, and was Mazzy Star’s only single to make the Billboard Hot 100. It managed to climb to number 44.
The song has appeared in a bunch of movies like Angus, End of Watch, Swept Away, American Honey, Lord of War, Burlesque, Starship Troopers, Chasing Mavericks and The To Do List.
If you don’t know it from a movie, you’ve almost certainly seen it in a TV series.
It was featured in, among others: Gilmore Girls, Roswell, CSI Miami, Alias, Cold Case, Desperate Housewives and Without a Trace. It also got played at least once at every single high school and middle school dance from 1994 to 1999.
“Fade Into You” Lyrics
I wanna hold the hand inside you
I wanna take the breath that’s true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life, you go in shadow
You’ll come upon and you’ll go black
Some kind of night into your darkness
Close your eyes with what’s not there
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew
The strange light comes on slowly
A stranger’s heart is out of home
You put your hands into your head
And your smiles cover your heart
“Fade Into You” Meaning
The lyrics to Mazzy Star’s most famous song are a bit of a mystery. They mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Ignoring the meaning for a moment, for most people from my generation, this song, maybe more than any other, takes us back to our youth.
It takes us back to the 90s and the era of alternative music; to a time before cell phones and the internet, when music was not readily available at all times. You only heard songs if you owned the album or if someone else played it for you, be it in concert, in a movie or TV show, on the radio, on MTV or at a friend’s house.
You couldn’t just look up a song you hear on YouTube and bookmark it to listen to whenever you wanted.
As for the lyrics, the most common interpretation is that “Fade Into You” is about having an unhealthy obsession with someone who is somewhat damaged and not capable of true affection. It is a bittersweet song, because naturally, such an affection can only end in heartbreak and disappointment.
Hope Sandoval’s haunting voice ads just as much, if not more, mood to the song as the lyrics.
She sings of attempting to find a connection with this partner, but soon coming to realize that they are not capable of forming a real emotional and physical connection. This realization is disappointing and heartbreaking and her breathy, ethereal voice conveys those feeling perfectly.
The first two verses describe her trying to get close to this person who is not truly available. Nonetheless, she ends up giving herself completely to the person to whom she is singing.
She has faded into him (or her). They have become everything to her and she’s lost herself in the process. The line “I think it’s strange you never knew” tells us that, all the while, the other person never even realizes this.
The final verse describes her waking up to all of this. She finally comes to the realization that the object of her infatuation is not actually available on a deeper level. His (or her) “smiles cover his/her heart.” The person is only superficially “with” her.
An alternative explanation I’ve heard quite a few times is that the song is about a shy girl finally confessing her true feelings to the object of her love. I think this works, too.
In this case, the last verse could simply mean that she finds it difficult to read the other person; she can’t tell if her feelings are reciprocated or not.
This might not be my favorite Mazzy Star song, but I still love it. And it’s usually the only one you’ll find at karaoke, so if you want to slip into Hope Sandoval’s shoes for a few minutes, it’s usually the only option. There are better songs to sing at karaoke though. This one is a bit melancholy for most occasions, but it could be a good song for serenading that special someone in your life.
Photo Credit: By Flickr user “Jason Persse” [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Stephen says
I really enjoyed reading about the interpretation and how many meanings it can have. I was born in ‘85 and this song was one my mom would listen to. She drank her self to death almost a year ago and it brings me back to a time she was capable of being present in my life. I never payed close attention to all the lyrics and knowing more about them makes it that much harder to listen to. I will always connect this song to my mom and not being able to reach her.
Camila says
That’s what I love about more ambiguous songs (or books or movies, etc.). We’re free to interpret them and let them affect us in our own personal way, based on our past experiences. Thank you for sharing!
Brittany Spicer says
I like this song. It’s has a somber feeling to it that makes me want to listen to it when I’m having a bad day. Most of the time I don’t actually even listen to the lyrics but today I took a little deeper look into it.
I know a lot of people think this is a song about romantic love. Whether that be unrequited, finding out that the person you love is not who you thought they were, or even finding out that you’ve invested yourself in a relationship that’s one sided.
I sometimes think about this song and I think that it could also be about someone that is watching their loved one go through a difficult time such as self-loathing or depression and wanting to help that person see what they see, but that the person they love is so far deep in the darkness that they can’t see the truth right in front of them. A sense of feeling helpless because you can’t get through to them.
Lyrics and Possibly Interpretation:
I want to hold the hand inside you
(Wanting to comfort someone and lead them back to feeling love and accepted or worthy of redemption and change when they are in a dark place)
I want to take a breath that’s true
(Wanting to tell them what is true but not being able to get through to them)
I look to you and I see nothing
(When we look at a loved one that’s in a dark place and not being able to find the person we once knew them to be).
I look to you to see the truth
(Knowing the truth about who they are even when they don’t see it. Knowing they are more than they believe but that they can’t see past their own pain and doubt / knowing it’s true that they are stuck).
You live your life
You go in shadows
(They are a shadow of themselves, of what they use to be. They resemble the person you remember but but there is something darker that blocks their light, that’s keeping them from their full potential)
You’ll come apart and you’ll go blind
(The loved one breaks apart and loose themselves possibly to self doubt or depression and they can’t see their potential or anything good. They are blind to all the good and then their world starts to look dark).
Some kind of night into your darkness
(Their mind becomes a dark place. A perpetual void of sorts that sucks them in further and feels like there is no escape).
Colors your eyes with what’s not there
(They close their eyes and self reflect. This person is watching there loved one dive deeper into a dark place. A place where they talk themselves into negativity. Like when we convince yourself that everything is wrong, that things are out to get us, that we are weak, and we can’t see that all that stuff is not real. It’s in the mind but we can’t see truths).
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew
(The person is looking at their loved one in this hard spot in their life and wondering how their loved one can’t see that they are their for them. That they have a support system, that someone cares and not everything is bad).
A stranger’s light comes on slowly
A stranger’s heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then its smiles cover your heart
(I’m not sure what this part is about. Maybe realization. Either the person that is living in darkness finally realizes that the person that is singing loves them or that someone cares and they dive deep into their mind to find healing and there is that moment or realization that dawns upon them making them smile. Understanding that it’s not all bad. But that seems a little too positive for the way it’s sung.
I even thought for a little bit that the stranger Might be a therapist of sorts as the stranger. I know that it’s kind of sucks when you have been telling someone something but they won’t hear it and let it sink in from you but that they get it when it comes from a stranger. Maybe it’s a therapist, someone that can help them talk through their issues.
Maybe this part is about the person that is singing it. That they are expressing their love and light that is shining through that person’s Darkness. The person that’s in darkness is reaching within themselves possibly seeing something the other person sees in them but that also sounds positive.
Maybe it’s hope of sorts that the person singing will have an effect and that some of their words will sink into that person’s mind and reach their heart enough to pull them out of the dark place but they’re just not understanding why this person that they care about just doesn’t get this already. But the loved one don’t see that the person sing actually cares or doesn’t see something within themselves that other people can see).
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew
(I think fading into someone could be getting lost in there issues or being forgotten. It could possibly mean that you invest yourself into someone so much that either they take you for granted and don’t see you. Maybe even that you lose yourself in them when you make it all about them and helping them until the day you realize that they might just not be able to be helped by you).
Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it’s strange you never knew
I think it’s strange you never knew
(I’m not really sure what this song is about but I think about most songs and they can be interpreted different based on what you are bringing to the words. I think that’s what is important about context. Unfortunately, we don’t know the writers situation and what they were going through during this period of time or what they witnessed. But I think that’s okay. I think that this can help many people in different ways if you don’t know directly what a song is about then you are better able to connect with it)
Camila says
Wow, that’s a really interesting interpretation! It makes a lot of sense, too. One of my favorite things about this song is actually the fact that it’s so ambiguous. I love that different people can listen to the same song and take a completely different meaning from it!