Matisyahu - Time of Your Song Lyrics
Lyrics
The world is moving to the song I hear,
Who's that singing, wind is rushing in my ear,
Mind gushing memories almost lost everything,
Felony and fellows running in my dream,
We were in the van where the hits were driving,
Saw myself In the highlands at age 13
And I'm asking questions to the present day me,
Moving backwards down the hill see we were posting.
(Chorus)
Moonlight illuminate my night and my days sunray make the people say
And a vision something's missing so they're screaming out loud
Keep my feet on ground and my head in the clouds.
I'm the arrow, you're my bow, shoot me forth and I will go
And I know and I go and I go get up and go
Make me feel its for real tell me what you know.
I don't need to glorify,
Ate the apple of the tree and tried to lie,
In the garden ill remember
That's when I started to sing
I said death brings life into uncertain things,
Cut some slack for me
Sun setting autumn breeze
Sound is moving like a chorus
Keep hearing that melody,
Check the radio but theres nothing playing,
Check the radio again but theres nothing playing.
(Chorus)
Rewind:
Dub-wise!
Swing low, sweet chariot of flames
Change my name, Yo!
It Was always the same,
Till if only what you find when you climb,
Check the radio but of all that shines there's no time,
My life is making your mind work in overtime,
But along the line you'll have to pay for the crime.
Slow it down You turbo too soon,
Vroom vroom then you want to blast off unto the moon,
But you might get trapped in a temple of doom,
You might get trapped in a temple of doom.
(Chorus)
Video
Time Of Your Song
Meaning & Inspiration
Matisyahu drops a strange, jagged line right in the middle of the second verse: "Ate the apple of the tree and tried to lie."
It’s a blunt, almost jarring reference to the Fall in Genesis 3. He isn't dressing it up in Sunday school lace. He’s acknowledging a fracture—the precise moment humanity decided it knew better than its Maker. We talk about the apple like it’s a fairy tale, but Matisyahu treats it like a cold, hard fact of his own biography. When he sings, "that's when I started to sing," he’s locating the origin of his art not in joy, but in the exile that followed the rebellion.
That’s where the tension sits. We usually think of singing as an act of praise or connection, but here, it’s a reaction to a broken state. He’s trying to reconcile the "memories almost lost" with the reality of having "ate the apple." It’s an admission that the music—and perhaps the life—is a byproduct of trying to hide from the Presence in the bushes.
Scripture tells us that after the eating, Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden and they hid (Genesis 3:8). Matisyahu flips the script. Instead of hiding, he’s listening. He’s "hearing that melody" while the radio remains silent. There is something haunting about that. It suggests that the song we are meant to follow isn't produced by human hands or broadcast over airwaves. It’s a frequency that exists behind the world, audible only when you stop trying to "turbo too soon" or "blast off unto the moon."
I find myself stuck on the line: "Death brings life into uncertain things."
It’s a paradox that makes my stomach turn because it’s true. It sounds like he’s nodding toward the radical irony of the Cross—where the absolute end became the absolute beginning. But he’s also talking about the death of his own ego, the "crime" he mentions later that we all have to pay for. It’s the ego that needs to die so that something else can finally breathe.
When I hear him say, "I'm the arrow, you're my bow, shoot me forth and I will go," I’m not sure if he’s talking about God, or the music itself, or the wind that’s "rushing in my ear." Maybe it doesn't matter. The submission is the point. He’s stopped trying to be the marksman and accepted his role as the projectile.
It’s not a tidy picture. He’s still worried about the "temple of doom," the ways we trap ourselves by reaching for glory too quickly. But there is a surrender here that feels authentic. He isn’t claiming to have arrived; he’s just admitting he’s been caught in a draft, carried by something louder than his own past mistakes. He’s singing because he can’t do anything else. And honestly, isn't that what we’re all doing? Just stumbling through the garden, listening for the melody that might actually be the Truth.