| Brooke Waggoner – Young Friend Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Love this song--the sound, the lyrics, everything. I think the first verse was inspired by the line in Pride and Prejudice, "What are men to rocks and mountains?" | |
| Iron & Wine – Lovesong of the Buzzard Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Overall I think this song is about a recovering heroine addict. Seriously. The dogwood is obviously a reference to the cross, and the buzzard is Jesus. I have two interpretations though, and I'm not sure which is more correct. One displays a hope in Christianity… the other displays major skepticism. Here is the hopeful version: Two people are sitting together in a beautiful spring setting, watching the sun go down together. Lucy is currently "blooming" or coming to life in the shade of the dogwood, or under the "protection" of the cross of Jesus. I've read that poisons derived from fish are used to help heroine addicts recover from their addictions; this means that "yesterday," with the solace of the poison fish, she was undergoing treatment. Because she is currently sitting beneath the dogwood, it seems that faith helped her through recovery. As a result, the singer is looking toward a hopeful tomorrow, when he knows she will continue to thrive and live, as evidenced by the healthy coloring of her lips. In the second stanza, I think he is saying that Jesus does not get the response from people that he wants to, that he isn't able to save everybody. As he hangs on the cross (the dogwood) in an act of love (his lovesong) people only hear a message that annoys them – hence the singer comparing his message to the song of a buzzard, one of the birds that the Bible says are unclean, one that no one pays attention to. In other words, his message of love falls on deaf ears when heroine (aka the train of "horses"--another word for heroine) races through people's veins (the traffic line). I'm not quite sure what the "cradle's unimaginative sense of time" is, but I think it symbolizes the steady, unchanging tempo of ordinary life. Basically, the drugs laugh at this ordinary cadence and call regular days (such as the one that the singer and Lucy are sharing) boring. (This may have more significance than I'm giving it... I'm open to suggestions.) The third stanza goes back to the hopeful scene with the singer and Lucy. She is in contrast with the second stanza, because she is no longer under the influence of drugs. It is springtime (signifying a renewal) and the promise of an open fist is a sign for her promise to no longer use drugs, or to squeeze her fist while injecting. Also, Lucy herself is springtime. The flower tattoo on her wrist is something beautiful covering something broken, or the springtime (her sobriety) that blooms on top of a bleak winter (her addiction). Lucy says her brow needs to be wiped, due (I think) to the sweating that occurs during detox. She jokes that it should be wiped with the Bible, or what he calls the pocket map to heaven. Maybe she's saying, "Phew! Saved just in time!" the way cartoon characters do when they narrowly escape, and she's suggesting that the Bible is what saved her. ……But this is also where my interpretation breaks down. She says it jokingly. This could mean it's just a figure of speech suggesting that she's relieved (not actually sweating)... but it could almost mean that the singer's whole theme of Christianity was skeptical to begin with. She might be joking about the Bible playing a role in her recovery. This raises the following issues with my above interpretation: - He might be suggesting that the "shade" of the dogwood is like a cloud instead of protective covering. - He might be BLAMING Jesus for not saving everyone, saying that he's not the savior he claims to be. Is he suggesting that he thinks Jesus IS like a buzzard, using the word "lovesong" ironically? He might be saying that Jesus merely chirps in a tree while people are suffering. - Is Lucy saying to wipe her brow with the Bible because it's just a rag, that it didn't help her through recovery? Anyone have thoughts on this? |
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