Somebody That I Used To Know

The lyrics describe someone looking back on a relationship that brought both happiness and loneliness. The speaker says the breakup itself felt like a relief, but the former partner’s sudden, complete rejection still hurts. As the song develops, the speaker recalls feeling blamed and misled, while insisting they do not want to keep living in suspicion and regret.

“Addicted to a certain kind of sadness” suggests becoming used to painful feelings, even when they are harmful. To “cut me off” means to end contact abruptly; here, it is made especially painful by the former partner acting as if the relationship never mattered. Having friends collect the speaker’s records and changing a phone number are concrete signs of creating distance and refusing further communication.

The lyrics present only one person’s account of the relationship, so we cannot know exactly how the other person understands the breakup. The repeated claim that the former partner is now “somebody” the speaker used to know may sound firm, but its repetition also suggests unresolved hurt. The speaker may be trying to accept the separation as much as describing a feeling already settled.