The Wolves

I have a slightly different suggestion for the meaning of this song.. Bear with me and let me know your thoughts!

Just gonna jump straight into it and suggest 'falling from high places' could be referring to 'the fall of man' as described in Genesis..(Is Ben Howard from a Christian family??) and that the whole song is about How 'we' have fallen from being with god (so a slight gospel message..)

'I lost my time here, I lost my patience with it all' =we lost our 'time'/position in heaven (relationship with god); we were impatient with the lord and turned a away..

AND AS A RESULT: our time (ie lives) are now limited= 'clock towers burning up', whereas before 'the fall' our lives were eternal. We are now lonely and isolated- unsatisfied and incomplete because of our separation from god= 'Now that we're lonely, now that there's nowhere to go'

'We lost faith in the arms of love'= we were once with god (i.e the 'arms of love') but we lost faith in him and are now separated; lonely, fighting our sin (I'll get onto this..)

'Where you been hiding lately' I think is referring to the gospel belief that we are all hiding from god, which, again alludes to and links us to the 'fall of man story'-Man (Adam and eve) hid from god after sinning and turning away from him. I think he suggests we (like them) are constantly all hiding from god- and so he asks where we've been hiding lately! I may be reading into this a bit much, its just its the only thing I can think of which would allow all the lyrics to have a coherent meaning.. I'll go on a bit more..

'the news'= the gospel news and thus he suggests we are all hiding from the 'news' ie the gospel? These two lines however could also possibly be paraphrasing what was said to him in the past- referring to someone who asked him such questions; condemning him (street preachers or a parent maybe?) which could therefore subvert the whole song meaning to it saying how he got tired of hearing it (Christianity) and turned away from it. 'The lord' could also be paraphrasing a parent for example..

(Almost done!) The biggest question is what are 'the wolves', here is my suggestion: So, to recap, (I think) he alludes to our fall away from god ('the arms of love';'the lord'). Similarly, he talks of our current state of separation from god (in essence our 'human condition'- ('Now that we're lonely, now that there's nowhere to go'). He now goes into it further to talk of our consequential battle with sin and I guess the 'demons' of this world so to speak.. these being the 'wolves' which as a result of 'the fall' we now all have to live with, in other words we battle with this 'sin'..('We've been fighting with the wolves')

And as a result our this battle and contact with sin we are now all guilty before god. This I get from the following line; 'Red tongues and hands' which paraphrases the saying of being 'caught red handed'; We are now stained with blood from these wolves; we are now all guilty as a result of our contact and battling with sin.

Just one more thing to add- the idea of fighting with sin (We've been fighting with the wolves, With the wolves, Red tongues and hands) is very much a Christian idea if it does in fact refer to sin.. The bible teaches that Sin was not always in us (ie before the fall) but it is now something that we must battle with because we have turned away from god and are now corrupted in nature..

He then leaves us with no solution to the problem of the position we now find ourselves in, hence, making the song a woe or saddened reflection to our 'mistake' at 'the fall' of turning away from god and not trusting him. So there you have it! Please respond and let me know what you think of my interpretation/ point out things I've missed!!

Thanks