Anymore Time Between

I simply adore this song, I can't quite pinpoint what it is but I think a lot of it has to do with his voice, and the guitar riffs. They're just amazing.

i also adore this song. I think its his voice that makes it amazing

The somewhat-disjointed feel of the lyrics: at first I'd wondered whether Bob might have been doing a W.S. Burroughs-style cut-up: taking small bits of words and rearranging them, trying to wring different meanings from them. With his creative abilities, I wouldn't be surprised if he could do it in his head (rather than pulling scraps of paper from a hat).

Listening to this recently, after not having played it for a long time--standing in the rain on Christmas Day (needing a few minutes respite from family togetherness)--the light went on over my head.

It's a phone conversation. Bob's singing both his own lines, and also the lines of the person on the other end of the phone.

A: "Don't cry anymore; don't cry anymore--" B: "I don't think so" A: "--anymore. You'll do it again!" B: "I don't mind...it's a waste of time."

(What I've got here, it's not quite aligned with the lyrics on the page. But I transcribed it while listening to the song; I think it's right.)

Imagine person A was repeating "don't cry anymore" while person B began by saying quietly "I don't think so," i.e. half-heartedly claiming: I'm able to talk with you without crying. In the background person A was continuing to worry aloud about having to simply listen to someone crying into the phone, then cuts in: "You'll do it again!" Person B (listen closely to Bob's performance) chuckles mirthlessly while speaking, and admits:

• not being particularly worried about whether he cries again

• wondering whether there's any point in the two of them "wasting time" continuing to talk with each other, going round in circles like this

This is assuming Bob is person B, which would kinda fit. OK, anyone might be concerned about holding back tears so as not to "make a scene." But it's more humiliating for a man to have someone hear him cry: having been taught (some having it beaten into them, literally) that this is something boys/men don't do. Ever.

Which doesn't exclude person A also being male. We've all heard the news by now. Even Bob is cool talking about it...these days, anyway. No longer angry like when he was first "outed" by a certain clique of gay activists, and also by members of the band Pansy Division. Not that a lot of folks in the scene didn't already know. But when it's no longer a secret--not even supposed to be a secret--people treat you differently. And everyone knows, and you know they know, etc.

What I've explicated: it's complex and intertwined, being based not only on the interplay of two sometimes-overlapping voices, but also the "space between" their words--the distance between "what you say" and "what you mean"--and (subtext) between what you say and what you really feel.

That's only half of one verse. Whew--