Mt. St. Helens

talk about a destructive song. i think perhaps towards the end we find out that the relationship was about sex. 'special death' could be an illusion to 'le petite morte' or the "little death". which is (god i'm being wordy) the depressed feeling a woman can sometimes have after orgasm. which can also allude to a feeling of detachment that could result from sex without love.

SO, maybe she's been with this guy, but for him it's just sex. and she figures it out. she was 'humbled' by all this serene, crazy beauty, but then learns the truth about it. which is, disaster and destruction. she realizes that she can't go on that way. she was, in a sense, destroyed.

This is probably my favorite Mirah song. Yes it's probably about sex.

...like all of her songs.

Oh, and ugly-girl, I doubt this is about a guy. Mirah is a lesbian.

hey i didn't know she was a lesbian.

hah, she had me fooled this whole time.

I believe that the lyric goes "You were hotter to me than the sun that burned me up the day we went to Mt. Saint Helens."

Great, great song. And if you've never been to Mt. Saint Helens and seen the mess that remains after more than 25 years, I'll just say that that is real destruction. I'd never want to feel that.

a beautiful song, and yes i agree that she feels as if she has been destroyed by a relationship. she cannot be freed from the idea of the relationship or her lover, she can't "escape the lion's jaw."

i think that the imagery of presenting mt. saint helens shows how monumental this relationship/lover is to mirah. she and her lover were "humbled" by the mountain, as if it made them feel insignificant. so much is going on in the world around her, there is destruction everywhere, not just in her heart.

'la petite morte" refers I believe to the orgasm itself, though the interpretation of the phrase as being about a post-orgasmic depressive lull plays into the song really well.

I see it as about an inaccessible relationship complicated further by sex. I've been unclear, though, as to whether the described trip to the mountain is supposed to be during the eruption, or whether being there is just a reminder of it - possibly like being around someone you slept with but couldn't be with, and being reminded of that heat. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

Regardless, beautiful imagery.

It's definitely a relationship piece, but I'm not certain that the "special death" is necessarily an orgasm (after all, the French term translates as "little death," not special). Something's gone wrong with the relationship and now all that's left is the "special death" -- a metaphorical death, or the death of the relationship. If you are really interested in Mirah's use of the term "special death" you ought to check out her song by that name (and on the same album--Advisory Committee). In my opinion, the "special death" is like being dead to the person you once loved, and/or having that person be sort of dead to you. The entire album built of interconnecting themes such as this.

Three years later, Mirah gives us the counter to these songs with the album "C'mon Miracle" in which she has songs such as "Don't Die In Me" and "You've Gone Away Enough."

Also: I understood the ending lyrics to be (with my emphasis added):

You were hotter to me than the sun that burned me up the day we went to Mount St. Helens, and if this special death you gave to me is the prize I get to take home solemnly then suffer with the thought that I could never be your friend, I could never come back home again.

(but it could be "silently" not "solemnly" now that I consider it)

in parenthetical girls "i was the dancer" he says "and then the disaster you came sometime after

I was young then full of grace then"

WHICH made me think of this song and how similar they are! i don't like it.