Matchbox Twenty Songs - 3 AM Lyrics

Matchbox Twenty - 3 AM

Matchbox Twenty - 3 AM Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Yourself Or Someone Like You
Released: 1996

3 AM Lyrics

She says it's cold outside and she hands me my raincoat
She's always worried about things like that
Well she says it's all gonna end and it might as well be my fault
And she only sleeps when its raining
And she screams, and her voice is straining

[Chorus]
And she says baby
It's 3am I must be lonely
When she says baby
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes
And the rain's gonna wash away I believe this

She's got a little bit of something, god it's better than nothing
And in her color portrait world she believes that she's got it all
She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to
And she only sleeps when its raining
And she screams, and her voice is straining

[Chorus]

Well, she believes that life isn't made up of all that you're used to
And the clock on the wall has been stuck at 3 for days, and days
She thinks that happiness is the mat that sits on her doorway
But outside its stopped raining

[Chorus]

Well it's 3am I must be lonely
Well hell, when she says baby
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes.

Writer/s: THOMAS, ROBERT / YALE, BRIAN / GOFF, JOHN / STANLEY, JOHN JOSEPH
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

3 AM

Lead singer Rob Thomas wrote this about the time he spent caring for his mother when she was sick with cancer. Thomas was 12 years old when she got the disease, and she was given 6 months to live. She beat it, and by the time Rob was 17, she was healthy and he left home to set out on his own. (thanks, Megan - Tracy, CA)

Thomas chose the time 3 am because it was an hour after the bars usually closed.

This came together when the band was known as Tabitha's Secret (Tabitha was the daughter on the TV show Bewitched). The band played in the Orlando area from 1993 until 1996, when Rob Thomas, Brain Yale and Paul Doucette signed a record deal and left to form Matchbox 20. The 2 members who were left behind continued as Tabitha's Secret and as a result of a lawsuit, were granted the rights to play and record this song, since they played on the demo of this that helped get Matchbox 20 the record deal.

The original version of this that helped get the band signed is acoustic. In 1998, the 2 remaining members of Tabitha's Secret released it on their album Don't Play With Matches. This version sounds a lot like Matchbox 20 and features Rob Thomas on vocals. Tabitha's Secret was allowed to release it, but couldn't mention any association with Matchbox 20 or use any photos of the band. To get around this, they put the names of the 5 members who recorded this (including Thomas) on the album cover.

The song was much slower when they first wrote it. When Matchbox 20 recorded their first album, they gave it a faster tempo.

This was Matchbox Twenty's second hit (after "Push"), and very important for the band because it proved they were not a one-hit-wonder.

Rob Thomas said at his 2006 Cleveland show with Jewel, "When I was younger I wrote songs all the time and at the time I thought they were great, but recently I looked at all the songs I wrote when I was younger and this was the first song I ever wrote that looking back on I still think is good." (thanks, Jen - Cleveland, OH)