Morning Hollow

I think the idea of a dog that is growing old and slowly drifting away from you can be seen as a larger metaphor for life and the way time slips away from us and watching something you love fade into nothingness infront of your eyes.

sparklehorse has all their lyrics on the net sparklehorse.org/lyrics.html just noticed a few little mistakes

I can actually relate this somewhat to a movie i just saw tonight. It' might be because i just watched the movie. but, if you've ever seen Black Snake Moan. you might understand this. The girl in the movie has been abused her whole life, and i think the song would be looking from the old man's perspective that finds her. "Trembling and getting old" might refer to a growing fear. Which in her case would be try to go without having an addiction to help her feel safe. "Smelling burnt oil of heaven." could be a reference to her addictions, feeling that urge to take action and fill her voids. The chorus "she don't get up" might refer to, the fact she's pretty much just "dying" from the pain, she has no ethusiasm with life anymore. she doesnt care. or, she's just not going to get better. she doesnt want to listen. etc. the next verse explains of the man, taking care of her. trying to rehibilitate her. The next line is kind of hard to describe. possibly. meaning. she doesnt care about all the bad things she's done, and its not like she can do much about them anyways. so she's giving up.

Seems the perfect song to send him off. Good luck.

i like skullzor's interpretation, and i think it can be branched out to applied to anyone-- many live from addiction to addiction, whether it be substances, or passionate love, or just some kind of extreme, disillusioned fantasy. many can only live in the comfort of those extremes, often only want to live in those extremes because life is too mundane and droning without them. without them, there's no motivation. i can definitely see this being about a dog, on the surface, but it can also illustrate the destruction of a human's hopes over the course of his life-- constantly getting extreme passions, enveloping loves destroyed, and after a while just deciding to settle for paralysis; he gives up. it's easier, it's the sane, stable, realistic choice. he gives up hope for attaining those fleeting ineffable states. he don't want all the intense pain and insanity that goes along with constantly trying to attain a phantom ideal.

"She don't get up When I come Into the room She don't run Through the fields Anymore"

rest in peace, mark linkous.

In answer to your question, benpoulden, "Morning Hollow" appears on two seperate Sparklehorse albums. As a hidden track at the end of "It's A Wonderful Life" and as track 9 of 12 on 'Dreamt Light Years...". So it does end one album.

I think the pet idea is a lovely one. Mark Linkous uses animal imagery in the majority of his songs and spoke about the feeling of closeness he had to animals after his accident. It feels like a touching realisation that a pet that has always been a source of comfort is not going to be around for much longer.

One other thing, and this is not so much a point as just a feeling, but I have just been reading 'Child of God' by Cormac McCarthy - one of Mark Linkous's favourite books, and there is a scene towards the end where Lester Ballard wakes up in a hollow in the ground and sees morning light coming through a crack in the ceiling and he's is just unbelievably pitiful and you know that he is very close to the end. Mark definitely was a huge fan of the book and so the connection feels pretty likely.

i have absolutely NO idea what he is saying afte r"she don't work..." which sucks, because it seems fairly significant to the meaning of the song

regardless, this is a fantastic song and i cannot believe he chose to push it to the end of the album (it is the hidden track on "It's A Wonderful Life"). so, so sad. i'm not sure who he's talking about, but apparently she's either fallen into a great depression or illness. very sad stuff, the mood of the song is perfect, but it leaves you feeling rather empty.

shit, i got it!

she don't work all them murders of crows

sweet.

I have It's A Wonderful Life, but I had never heard the hidden track until you mentioned it. Much love. :D

i think its about a pet dieing, probably a dog, and sounds like on a farm unless thats just mine sad