How Can It Be

Song Meaning

The lyrics open with a series of rhetorical questions, expressing bewilderment at unexpected shifts in relationships and life. The speaker struggles with profound changes, repeatedly asking "How can it be?" This phrase underscores a deep sense of disbelief at life's unpredictable turns. This initial confusion is immediately undercut by the chorus, which reveals a shared, unspoken understanding. The line "Well you know why" creates a poignant tension, suggesting that while the "how" remains baffling, the painful "why" is already known to both the speaker and the implied listener. The narrator appears to acknowledge a truth too difficult to articulate directly. The lyrical craft effectively uses vivid, contrasting images to deepen this sense of disbelief. For instance, the question of "How can a woman eat up a man?" evokes a visceral sense of destruction and emotional consumption. The verses also juxtapose dramatic personal transformations, from success to failure, and profound emotional inversions, where sadness gives way to laughter. Ultimately, the lyrics resonate by capturing the universal human experience of grappling with events that defy easy explanation, even when the underlying causes are painfully clear. The repeated mention of the speaker's desire to "cry and sigh" in the chorus grounds the intellectual wrestling in raw, emotional resignation, making the unspoken "reason why" feel heavy and unavoidable.