White lips, pale face
Breathing in the snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
The ‘snowflakes’ are used to symbolize her taking drugs. This language also portrays her innocence and youth — it makes it seem like she doesn’t actually know how bad the drugs are.
Breathing in snowflakes can also be taken literally, as the girl portrayed in this song is a prostitute, so she could very well be outside during a snowy night.
Light's gone, day's end
While it means it’s no longer day time, it could also extend to a point where all of her days have become nights. There is no more light — i.e. happiness, in her life because she spends all of her time doing drugs.
Struggling to pay rent
The girl isn’t very wealthy and she struggles to pay her bills.
Long nights, strange me
She’s forced to work as a prostitute, selling sex to ‘strange’ men. Her nights are long and tiring.
And they say
She’s in the Class A team
The Class A Team is nothing to do with sport. It’s used as a metaphor — she’s on Class A drugs. Also, the ‘they say’ tells us that people are talking about her behind her back and look down on her.
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
She has no prospects — she’s going to have to be like this forever.
But lately
Her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
She’s been able to put up with it for many long years, but not anymore. She hates doing what she become white and pale because of drugs. Because white is the colour of purity, it adds to her innocence has to do and is slowly losing the will to live. Pastries crumble, because they are delicate and fragile. Angel has become frail in body and mind from drugs she’s been taking. Her face has also.
The worst things in life come free to us
Means that we get the worst things for free. The worst thing in her life is not the drugs, wish she has to pay for, but the fact that somebody is abusing her. She gets this for free. This can be kind of ironic if you think about it because she actually gets paid for the abuse.
She certainly has to pay most of what she earns to her pimp so the ironic thing about this is that she has to pay someone for getting abused, while most of us get this for free. A take on the common the best things in life come for free’ saying.
Cos we're just under the upper hand
She’s just under the position of control. She nearly has control of her life, but not quite.
And go mad for a couple of grams
She’ll do anything (e.g. go mad in bed) for a couple of grams of drugs. She’s addicted.
And she don't want to go outside tonight
She’s been telling herself to get her life back in track, but just for this one night, she seeks shelter — in the bed of a strange man.
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
She feels like she’s in Paradise when she’s taking the cocaine.
Or sells love to another man
On nights when she’s not in the ‘Motherland’, she’s selling her body to another man.
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly!
The night and time is too harsh for her to try and start a new life. In other words, she is procrastinating. She wants a better life, but she’s too depressed to think it will ever work out. The line is a metaphor. it’s to cold outside is not referring to temperature but rather a cold society. Despite her beeing an “angel” she is unable to fly outside because she is constantly being judged by the cold society she lives in. thus the line it’s to cold outside for angels to fly. The line is referring to her but is not a specific her. It is a general term on society and how superficial it is and that is basically what the song is about. It shows the human side of whats in this case a prostitute, but can be applied to anyone who we normally would not wanna relate to.
Ripped gloves, raincoat
All her belongings are torn and ripped — she doesn’t have money to replace them. Her raincoat tells us that she may have been sleeping outside a lot
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
These following lines are justification, it shows both the good and bad (ying/yang) of what’s happening in her life. Although it’s leaning towards bad, there is some good, in other words there is some hope
Call girl, no phone
She’s a call girl, but too poor to own a phone
And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately
The A Team is a specific class for certain, serious drugs. So crack, tobacco, meth and other drugs like that are class A. This phrase is pretty much saying how people know she’s on cocaine, and she has been since she was 18 years old.
her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Recently, her face looks as if it’s wasting away, her looking more and more sad everytime he sees her.
Crumbling like pastries
Pastries crumble, because they are delicate and fragile. Angel has become frail in body and mind from drugs
And they scream
She cries out for help
The worst things in life come free to us
Usually people say the best things in life are free but this girl has never felt these things, she has only felt the worst things
Cos we're just under the upper hand
They’re so close to getting what they want
And go mad for a couple of grams
She will do anything to get her drugs
But she don't want to go outside tonight
She doesn’t want to spend the night freezing and
Selling herself on the street, so she gets high first.
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
She flies (when she gets high) to the Motherland — When she’s high she feels less pain, transported to a safe, warm, dry, sheltered place. It’s an escape
Or sells love to another man
She’s a prostitute.
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
The song was written for a girl Sheeran met while he was volunteering at a shelter (as revealed in an interview.) The crack whore, Angel, clearly lead a terrible life, run down in a shelter and displaying all the obvious signs of cocaine addiction. Yet, Sheeran said that even though she was a cocaine addicted prostitute, he still found her to be a kind girl that let cocaine get the best of her. Henceforth, the song was written about her. In these two lines, Sheeran’s use of “angel” and not “Angel” portrays the kind “angel” that is still inside of her, which remains hidden underneath the white cold reigns of cocaine addiction. Basically, Angel the angel can’t fly because the cocaine’s taken over her world.
An angel will die
Covered in white
She will die soon because her addiction to cocaine has become so terrible. The white is cocaine
Closed eye
Closed eyes, as in she’s dreaming.
And hoping for a better life
She will die, still wishing that she didn’t have to make money the way she did and that she had never got addicted to cocaine.
This time, we'll fade out tonight
Straight down the line
They’ll get high down the line. Here, “line” refers to lines of cocaine
And they say
She's in the Class A Team
A Team, class A drugs in the UK carry the
Harshest punishment for possession
But lately
Over time
They scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Means that we get the worst things for free. the worst things in her life is not the drugs, wish she has to pay for, but the fact that somebody is abusing her. She get this for free. This can be kind of ironic if you think about it because she actually gets paid for the abuse.
She certainly has to pay most of what she earns to her pimp so the ironic thing about this is that she has to pay someone for getting abused, while most of us get this for free
And we're all under the upperhand
Go mad for a couple of grams
ALL drug-addicted prostitutes hate the work they are forced to do — it’s humiliating, degrading. But they need the money to fly to the ‘Motherland’.
And we don't want to go outside tonight
She doesn’t want to spend the night freezing and
Selling herself on the street, so she gets high first
And in a pipe we fly to the Motherland
She flies (when she gets high) to the Motherland —
When she’s high she feels less pain, transported to
a safe, warm, dry, sheltered place. It’s an escape
Or sell love to another man
Hooker to pay for her addiction
It's too cold
A side-effect of getting high off of cocaine is feeling extreme temperatures, both hot and cold. She’s probably feeling cold, so it’s basically she’s feeling cold from the coke, but at the same time it’s too “cold” for angles to fly.
This may be over thinking, but it might mean that since it’s too cold (coke) she can’t fly because she’s done too much coke. Meaning she doesn’t and wont have a place in heaven.
For angels to fly
Angels to fly
To fly, fly
Angels to fly, to fly, to fly
Ed visited a homeless shelter and met a woman name Angel, who told him her story.
Angels to die
At the end of the song, she dies — a result of her cocaine addiction and the fact that she’s lost the will to lives.
A/N: My first novella will be reposted SOON. "Angels to Fly" the story of a young prostitute. So that's the background of the song. Iba yung gagawin kong story dito, pero same pa rin na isa siyang prostitute hehe. May mga magbabago lang. Bale melo drama ang genre nito, sana suportahan nyo ako hehe.. Salamat :D