The Birthday Massacre – Shiver lyrics

This song is kinda hard to interpret and the easiest way to go about it would be to go through it line by line. Lets start with the very beginning. "a painting for every face," this line is discussing the outward appearance that people show to the world, "no correction, just cover up," implies that something is wrong, and instead of healing it, they hide it, a bit like putting a band aid on a broken arm. It isn't until the line, "too cold to shiver," that you are given a hint about what is wrong. That line is implying that the person being discussed- who is said to be female- has some sort of trauma that has made her emotionally dead. So traumatized- or 'cold'- that she can't show how traumatized she is- so cold she can't 'shiver'. She looks and acts normally- but something is seriously wrong. "all the hands along the wall taking time to break her fall," I think that can be put together with the line about paintings. In a portrait, often you can only see the faces, not the hands of the person being pictured, so all the paintings on the wall- as previously implied to be incorrect portrayals of a person- are the only ones who understand her pain and therefore are trying to help her by extending their not pictured hands to slow her fall- and hopefully stop it before she goes completely insane. And this person, possibly oblivious to the help of these 'paintings' is desperately trying to pull herself up from the bottom she's hit. "breaking her fall over you," that line says that she's using someone else to break her fall, that she's relying on people other than the paintings- people who don't understand her, possibly a shrink- to keep her upright. "minds divide the heart in two," this says that she can't figure it out herself, shes confused about her desires and these conflicting feelings are breaking her heart in two. "all the eyes behind the wall, taking time to watch her crawl," the paintings, the ones who understand her, are watching anxiously to see is she can get up from her 'crawl'.