Love of Mine

Love of mine, when you're born I tell myself that you'll never die And I throw my arms Around the girl who finds you, 'Cause the world is rosier Through your eyes

{So, the "love of mine" here is not the girl. Thile is addressing Love itself, personified. Specifically, the feeling of Love that his brain experiences when he is smitten. He says to Love, "I throw my arms around the girl who finds you, Love," and the rest of him climbs on board because the world is rosier through Love's eyes.}

I don't suppose you caught her name?

{Clearly, this person isn't someone he's in a relationship with, though. It's a hookup. Something like that. It's someone he really knows nothing about, who turns him on, and conjures Love like a muse, but who he isn't invested in.}

Never mind; I'll just name her After you, love of mine And fashion her into A sweet, long-legged icon, Making our prayers holier

{Anyway, who she really is, her name and all, isn't important. Just as in PATCHWORK GIRLFRIEND, she is part of the tapestry of the experience of Love that he's having in his life. He'll just call her Love, too, for the time-being. The idea of her (and she can only be an idea to him, because he knows nothing about her, really) and the memory of the encounter is etched like religious imagery. She is an icon of Love. The encounter was so mind-blowing that it was almost transcendent, religious in intensity.}

Satisfied, love, that she gave us to each other— The only thing she's done for me That you could never do And for it, she'll always be remembered After she discovers I don't love her Half as much as you

{But, he tells Love, it's okay that he doesn't really know the girl. Because the girl is the vessel that brought you and I back together, Love. I can't have the chemical experience of being in love without a girl. And the girl finds out the hard way that what Chris loves is the feeling of Love, not her as person.}

Love of mine, when she goes, Why can't you stay here with me?

{Why can't the existential high of being with someone last after they go? Why can't Love stay without the girl to conjure it?}

Love of mine, when you die I tell myself that you never lived Even as I curse the girl Who says she'll find someone worthier Of the gift—

Someone who wants to share it with her, Far away from those who take it to have and to hoardNow I'm stuck here trying to not remember; For all these pretty words It wasn't her, but love that I adored It's my love I adore

{Once it becomes clear that I don't really want anything to do with her long-term, she is hurt, and decides to take the gift of herself-- the person, not the icon-- elsewhere. Things are awkward. You go, Love, and I curse her for taking you away. But she's off to look for someone who can love her, rather than just love Love.}

Love of mine, when you're born I tell myself that you'll never die

{Oop. Here we go again.}