"I think the song's title sums up the song 'A Lack of Color'. That on the outside their relationship seems boring, uninteresting, stale and to not be trying too hard. But the character in the song feels that it's really bursting from the seams. He remembers her, thinking of how special that kind of love was. That it didn't need to be showy and colorful. It was true on the inside, a deep unconditional love. The kind of secret beauty to be envious over.
But it was only him that felt this way. She didn't. She left him, and he's desperately trying to figure out why (why this keeps happening). After remembering what their love meant to him, he wants her (that kind of love) back. He calls her and leaves a message. But he knows it's too late. He knows that she didn't feel the same. To her their love was just a lack of color.
After years of repeating this pattern, of others not feeling the same, he realizes that only a colorful relationship will work. One in which the love is on the outside, is shallow, where rather than absorbing all the colors of the spectrum, they only reflect color, and have no value on the inside. Obviously, that silent sweet love isn't enough for anyone else, he thinks. Hence, "I should have given you a reason to stay."
"This is fact not fiction, for the first time in years." This is his resolution to the issue.
The fiction was his fantasy of true love.
The fact is that they leave you if you lack visible color.
He realizes that the kind of purely abstract love he wants is unrealistic.
He's no longer living in fantasy. Through the trauma, he's learnt a lesson.
Now that he's not pursuing a path that's doomed to always fail (and get him
hurt), he is now wiser. He's not going to turn anyone around from being
upside-down to fit what he wants love to be.
In future, he'll come closer than he ever could before to that kind of abstract love!
No more will there be a lack of color here."
