It is not "I can't compete with memories".
The correct lyrics are "Life can't compete with memories.
This song took me a while to get into compared to the rest of the record but I find it more beautiful each time I listen. A lot goes unsaid about this song between Conor and the listener. For instance, the "suggestion" that the subject made that the speaker never tried. This is only one way to interpret it, but I think he may be talking about having a child with the subject. If you look at subtext, there is evidence of this.
"It was nothing I'd consider, I knew it had to happen then."
He could be talking about a pregnancy, which is something that does not permit a lot of freedom to responsible and loving adults. In the rest of the album, Conor voices his qualms about having a child, like in the video for Common Knowledge, in the introduction. He also laments his unwillingness to be tied down in Lonely At The Top with "til then I'm walking out the door...running through the airport, til then i'm waiting around for no one."
In the next lines, he describes standing on the banks of the river, watching the water rush by. Water is a universal symbol of life and fertility. He is watching new life rush by him, doing nothing about it. The next line explains why (you said we should live in the moment, but then i'd miss you all the time), saying that he would never be around for her, and also in the subtext, the baby, since the pronoun "you" is not limited to one person.
The rest of the song, not particularily about the baby, just explains how the subject is extremely important to him, and how hard it is to be away from her all the time.
The final evidence of this song being about childbearing is the title iself, and the lyric derrived from it. "I keep looking back for artifacts to prove that you were here." Having a child with the subject would probably be the hardest evidence of their love, since he can't seem to find any the way that things are between them. A child would suite the title of "Artifact #1" very well, don't you think?
One small correction in the lyrics:
It is not "I can't compete with memories". The correct lyrics are "Life can't compete with memories.
This song took me a while to get into compared to the rest of the record but I find it more beautiful each time I listen. A lot goes unsaid about this song between Conor and the listener. For instance, the "suggestion" that the subject made that the speaker never tried. This is only one way to interpret it, but I think he may be talking about having a child with the subject. If you look at subtext, there is evidence of this.
"It was nothing I'd consider, I knew it had to happen then." He could be talking about a pregnancy, which is something that does not permit a lot of freedom to responsible and loving adults. In the rest of the album, Conor voices his qualms about having a child, like in the video for Common Knowledge, in the introduction. He also laments his unwillingness to be tied down in Lonely At The Top with "til then I'm walking out the door...running through the airport, til then i'm waiting around for no one."
In the next lines, he describes standing on the banks of the river, watching the water rush by. Water is a universal symbol of life and fertility. He is watching new life rush by him, doing nothing about it. The next line explains why (you said we should live in the moment, but then i'd miss you all the time), saying that he would never be around for her, and also in the subtext, the baby, since the pronoun "you" is not limited to one person.
The rest of the song, not particularily about the baby, just explains how the subject is extremely important to him, and how hard it is to be away from her all the time.
The final evidence of this song being about childbearing is the title iself, and the lyric derrived from it. "I keep looking back for artifacts to prove that you were here." Having a child with the subject would probably be the hardest evidence of their love, since he can't seem to find any the way that things are between them. A child would suite the title of "Artifact #1" very well, don't you think?