Cutting My Fingers Off

“Cutting My Fingers Off” was the lead single off of Turnover’s 2015 full-length album Peripheral Vision.

The overall concept of the album is that the narrator has a mental illness — bipolar disorder mentioned directly — and it goes through the various stages of his relationship with his girlfriend, who is being talked about in this song. Eventually, he succumbs to his mental illness and forces himself to break up with his girlfriend.

“Cutting My Fingers Off”, which is ironically the album’s opening track, takes place after the events that occur throughout the remainder of the album. The narrator is reminiscing on his previous relationship, and is still longing for his ex-girlfriend.

Bass guitarist Dempsey told Billboard about the meaning of this song:

““Cutting My Fingers Off” is more of, things will go wrong in your life and at first you’ll think it’s okay. You and your girlfriend might be going through a breakup and at the start of it you might be thinking it doesn’t matter, but then you realize it sucks. Or you could lose your job and your whole life changes. Sometimes you can feel a physical pain and that’s what that compares to.“