Plain White T's - The Giving Tree
Plain White T's - The Giving Tree


Plain White T's - The Giving Tree Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Should've Gone To Bed
Released: 2013

The Giving Tree Lyrics


All the leaves on The Giving Tree have fallen
No shade to crawl in underneath
I got scars from a pocket knife
Where you carved your heart into me

If all you wanted was love
Why would you use me up
Cut me down, build a boat, and sail away
When all I wanted to be was your giving tree
Settle down, build a home, and make you happy?

I lie in the dead of night and I wonder
Whose covers you're between
And it's sad laying in his bed
You feel hollow, so you crawl home back to me

If all you wanted was love
Why would you use me up
Cut me down, build a boat, and sail away
When all I wanted to be was your giving tree
Settle down, build a home, and make you happy?

Well, I see a trail that starts
A line of broken hearts behind you
That lead you back to me
The once sad and lonely fool
With nothing left but roots to show, oh

If all you wanted was love
Why would you use me up
Cut me down, build a boat, and sail away
When all I wanted to be was your giving tree
Settle down, build a home, and make you happy?
Settle down, build a home, and make you happy?

Writer/s: LOPEZ, TIM / DALY, MIKE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Giving Tree
  • This acoustic ballad was written and sung by guitarist Tim Lopez. The song describes a dysfunctional give-and-take relationship and references Shel Silverstein's children's book of the same title, which Lopez recalls being read to him as a kid.
  • Frontman Tom Higgenson commented to Radio.com of the tune's bare production: "A song like 'The Giving Tree' that Tim wrote, it just felt so good with his finger-picking thing. It felt like that's the way the song should stay."

    "Sometimes adding to a song like that just takes away. What you really want to do is suck the listener in to only hear the story and the vocal," Lopez added. "So, you keep piling stuff on it and it starts to deteriorate the song. Tracks like that you leave small."