| The Shins – September Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I've been thinking a lot about this song since he first debuted it - especially since the music video for it features the lyrics, it made me think he really wanted people to pay attention to it. I'm not going to go into what the song is about as a whole, but wanted to provide my thoughts on the background. I think there's a really significant mythological element here. The first stanza mentions Pontus, which is the name of an ancient Greek sea-god. The reference to giving up a pearl seems to make this a clear reference to the birth of Aphrodite, born from the ocean in a clam shell. Adonis was born of Myrrha, who was transformed into a tree (won't go into the details here, but Google "aphrodite and adonis" and you can see the background of the myth). Aphrodite came upon the baby ("A song in the tree has distracted her mind / Some other curious form of life / Had made its presence to her known".). When Adonis grew up Adonis fell in love with her. For the bits about him being selfish and full of pride, this could relate to how Adonis died (Aphrodite warned him to not hunt an animal who shows no fear, but he does anyway with a wild boar in the form of Ares, and dies). I've frankly been struggling with this meaning, since there's enough in here that it seems like a clear reference to Adonis and Aphrodite, but other parts are not as clear. All I've read from Mercer about this song is that he said it was written as a love song for his wife, so it would raise the questions about the metaphors in the Aphrodite/Adonis relationship (which is pretty complicated) and why you would use it for a love song. I may be way off, but some of the lyrics just feel too connected to the Aphrodite/Adonis myth to be purely coincidental. |
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