In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
From the fury pit, a reek of misery
Like a trumpet groan, tornado moan
The splendor splits like a golden skin
He and the wizards cry like hummingbirds
In treasure glows, your weeping wings
And a slaughter grins, on a pleasure spike
When held on high by the riverside
Like a torn-throat child in a jackals hide
Cool water dies, vile diamond eyes
Silent in flamingo ease distant in troubled trance
Within a whirlpool, we're breaking our backs
The tears of the moon, the sweat of the sun
Sacrificial hearts for a pointing bone
With a gorgons head and a coal of skulls
They're kindling fires in open wounds
Pointing bone, in a jaguar skin, blood matted mane
Beacons blaze toward a waning moon
Like a trumpet groan, tornado moan
The splendor splits like a golden skin
He and the wizards cry like hummingbirds
In treasure glows, your weeping wings
And a slaughter grins, on a pleasure spike
When held on high by the riverside
Like a torn-throat child in a jackals hide
Cool water dies, vile diamond eyes
Silent in flamingo ease distant in troubled trance
Within a whirlpool, we're breaking our backs
The tears of the moon, the sweat of the sun
Sacrificial hearts for a pointing bone
With a gorgons head and a coal of skulls
They're kindling fires in open wounds
Pointing bone, in a jaguar skin, blood matted mane
Beacons blaze toward a waning moon
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A type of Aboriginal magic, the pointing of the bone (sometimes called singing someone) was believed to cause death. People who had been 'pointed' often died, not as a result of the magic itself, but because of their belief that they would die i.e., death through superstition or imagination.