Why? – Gemini (Birthday Song) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
Firstly...this song is great. lovely song to chill out to around a fire....yeah! anyways.... in my opinion (n i've worked on this) this is a love song. Why? is singing this to a girl who he is madly in love with, whilst also knowing that someday the two of them will grow apart and move away. This sets the melancholy mood for the song, but also explaining the lovely lyrics: "It starts with you on a mattress in your parents' old room, clipping your toenails into the room like the room will fade" This is his first memory of them together, just a small thing (but they're often the ones you remember best) "and you will move onto other rooms and you will go to other places" But he's saying he knows that it's not going to last forever, even though he loves her so much "Then the wedding, Then the woman passed out in the driver's seat at the order board at White Castle. We woke her up and she went 'round to the pick up window like she knew exactly where she was." now he's just thinking of memorable times that the were together. Then.... "Then I wept with my face in your night shirt, trying hard as hell to say "until death separates us," This is the important bit, in the present (or at least, the present when he's singing her this song). He loves her very much you see...but he's sad because he doesn't think they'll be together forever (hence 'till death seperates us') "loosening the skin on your breastbone, I painted your nails and you sleep while I write all this down." This is just a nice little train-of-thought bit, describing when he wrote this down. "There was a moth caught in the soapdish laminated in lye" This bit i'm not sure on. Suggestions?? its probably just Why? being Why? - as you know, he has a penchant for oblique lyrics "Will you still remember me well If I don't get to two-o-o-five?" self-explanatory, although its cool the way the backing singers do the "two" "My Deadline Gemini" gemini because: a)they're spiritual twins b)her star sign is gemini "When we're on different sides of the globe I thought we'd keep our veins tangled like a pair of mic cables, And if there ain't enough slack to reach that we'd solder them together and across oceans they'd stretch." He's trying to stay positive dammit! although note the past tense "i thought": now he's realised "Our faces reflected in separate windshields and all our body hair pricked up an elephant eyelash." They so very far apart but still thinking of each other "Should we be tempted by thief or saint it seems I leave and you stay to crawl the cage and curse." Should they be tempted by other people, other loves, other lives. Also is this a hint that he's leaving town - maybe to...pursue his record career??? "But don't regret the done dirt, there is no life plan set, you just swallow the cold and follow your breath until death. Now even if the will to sleep persists I can't 'cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters." Now he's getting philosophical - maybe it was never meant to be? Maybe it was just a thing, nothing more than a young lovers romance? but...he can't sleep because he still thinks about her "Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair. Hair that once sprouted from my own white wet chalk follicles.” He’s now older so it’s later on in his life…not hair literally I think but more the sense of memories and past lives. ”I swallow a coal and follow my breath and I did it with the grapefruit soap thinking of you.” He swallows the soap?? Figuratively, meaning he’s still punishing himself for letting it slip away ”Bathed, shaved, and oiled, your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming between the mattress and the layers of bedding turning in your drug dry sleep. When I ask you to kiss my pulse you offer to start the shower. I want a verb and you give me a noun. What do you dream up while I tongue you down?” Ah…why? is focusing on the good things, the good memories…you have to stay positive after all. Better to have loved and lost, n’est pa? ”You know my build. You know my size. The degree to which my eyes are astigmatic.” A nice little coda, about how well she knows him. Although the song is melancholic, this ending is sweet…so you know…not to depressing or anything. And the use of “astigmatic” is clever. Either A) it means she just knows him really well B) Astigmatic is when you have one eye short-sighted and the other long-sighted….so she knows the degree to which he is looking at the here and now whilst also worrying about what is to come?? A clever and lovely song |
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