Why I Like The Robins

This song is nothing short of beautiful to me. It feels like a deep love, care, devotion and companionship. If I’m being entirely honest it’s hard to listen to this song without crying sometimes. The use of the animal, the robin is something not lost on me in thematic purpose. They’re a kind of nostalgic animal, to me anyway. I used to see them all the time as a kid along with Blue Jays and Woodpeckers. They’re a bird, free, with soft yet striking colours. The exchanging roles in the lyrics, “So hand me the glasses and teach me how to use them, I want to look to.” (Asking for the other person to show them where to look or how to be directed in what they should want, to meet each other in that shared emotion / or alternatively “I want to look too”, as well making it a shared experience / defining connection) It feels entirely raw and pure, especially with the lyrics afterward being, “I’ll take the glasses and cover for you, you get some sleep and I’ll stay till 2.” The act of doing something for another person, staying with them when they’re asleep is a very intimate action. The concept of “covering” for the other person and doing something for them while they’re asleep, and staying later, maybe than expected. There’s a clear nostalgic quality to this song, it taps into the memory and invokes feelings. “She’s looking for birds she met last fall, who said they’d come back different than all. She’s waiting for six who know about sound and promised to come back upside down.” These lyrics show that in my opinion. As well as the way the rest of the song continues in changing parts of this lyric. > “I’m looking for six who know about sound. We promise to come back upside down.” Once it becomes we it’s then shifted to the last lyrics being, “She’s got colours to spare and I don’t care what they choose. I’ve got nothing to do and nothing like you left to lose.” I can’t entirely explain it but to me that is the perfect ending to this song. Almost like a declaration or straightforward showing of affection and previous underlying emotion now brought forward. It feels of yearning, maybe desperate, severe desire for connection and to be with one another. It’s solely of love and want. “Nothing like you left to lose” feels exactly like that, in terms of a statement. The individual feels that they’ve never had anything like this, that this is maybe the only thing they’re concerned about losing. That this woman bears a greater importance in their life, and to me, that is beautiful. This song hurts in all of the right ways to me. I couldn’t understand the lyrical content being lost on someone, it’s straight forward and simultaneously entirely poetic / elusive. This song makes me think of a love that transcends time, if that makes sense at all. Makes you feel connected to a past version of yourself, a younger self. A love that makes you feel as though you were never strangers for a moment and have known each other in “every lifetime” so to speak. This song bears heavy on me, I feel a deep attachment to it and it will always be one of my top Hum songs if not single-handedly my favourite Hum song.