I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
I'm ten feet under water
Standing in a sunken canoe
Looking up at the waterlilies
They're green and violet blue
Still the sun it finds
A place to light me
Still the sun it finds
That it's warm beside me.
Green and violet blue
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
The letters that were writing
Baby they just break our hearts
And when we get back together again
There's just no time to start.
No time to restore
It's all on the ground
What you've been doing
Against what I've found.
And this is what I find
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
I'm not a playboy or a poet
There's no cool water from the well
I wish you had a big house
And that your work would start to sell.
Wave after wave
Our tension and our tenderness.
Wave after wave
Our tension and our tenderness.
Green and violet blue
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
I know I'll see you again
The world is too big or too small.
I won't be the madman then
It will be me that's come to call.
Me in freezing weather
Snow cuffs on my wrist.
You down by the river
London no longer exists.
This is what I find
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
Standing in a sunken canoe
Looking up at the waterlilies
They're green and violet blue
Still the sun it finds
A place to light me
Still the sun it finds
That it's warm beside me.
Green and violet blue
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
The letters that were writing
Baby they just break our hearts
And when we get back together again
There's just no time to start.
No time to restore
It's all on the ground
What you've been doing
Against what I've found.
And this is what I find
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
I'm not a playboy or a poet
There's no cool water from the well
I wish you had a big house
And that your work would start to sell.
Wave after wave
Our tension and our tenderness.
Wave after wave
Our tension and our tenderness.
Green and violet blue
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
I know I'll see you again
The world is too big or too small.
I won't be the madman then
It will be me that's come to call.
Me in freezing weather
Snow cuffs on my wrist.
You down by the river
London no longer exists.
This is what I find
No matter what you say no matter what you do
I want to be the one and
Love is a Sign.
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Dreamwalker
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Yo La Tengo
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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missing a lost love. confidence you'll be with them again.