I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Red sun go down way over dirty town
Starlings are sweeping around crazy shoals
A girl is there high heeling across the square
Wind blows around in her hair and the flaqs upon the poles
Waiting in the crowd to cross at the light
She looks around to find a face she can like
Church bell clinging on trying to get a crowd for Evensong
Nobody cares to depend to depend upon the chime it plays
They're all in the station praying for trains
Congregation late again
It's getting darker all the time these flagpole days
Drunk old soldier he gives her a fright
He's crazy lion howling for a fight
Strap hanging gunshot sound
Doors slamming on the overground
Starlings are tough but the lions are made of stone
Her evening paper is horror torn
But there's hope later for Capricorns
Her lucky stars give her just enough to get her home
Then she's reading about a swing to the right
But she's thinking about a stranger in the night
I'm thinking about the lions tonight
What happened to the lions
Starlings are sweeping around crazy shoals
A girl is there high heeling across the square
Wind blows around in her hair and the flaqs upon the poles
Waiting in the crowd to cross at the light
She looks around to find a face she can like
Church bell clinging on trying to get a crowd for Evensong
Nobody cares to depend to depend upon the chime it plays
They're all in the station praying for trains
Congregation late again
It's getting darker all the time these flagpole days
Drunk old soldier he gives her a fright
He's crazy lion howling for a fight
Strap hanging gunshot sound
Doors slamming on the overground
Starlings are tough but the lions are made of stone
Her evening paper is horror torn
But there's hope later for Capricorns
Her lucky stars give her just enough to get her home
Then she's reading about a swing to the right
But she's thinking about a stranger in the night
I'm thinking about the lions tonight
What happened to the lions
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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It's just a word picture of Trafalgar Square on a weekday evening. The drunk old soldier isn't really significant, or a character in his own right, the point is the insignificance, that he is the only thing that happens. I don't think there's a connection between him and the fantasy "stranger in the night"
About as much happens to the lions as happens to the girl.
It sounds very negative, put like that, but I don't take it all that seriously: it's just a very atmospheric picture of a particular scene.