The Bachelor and the Bride

question. In the line "there's a wrinkle in the water where we laid our first daughter" do you think he's referring to baptism or a burial at sea?

I think the wrinkle in the water is a burial at sea, pumkinhed put it, of a baby girl. This is an incredibly violent song, as some Decemberists songs are. Boxing someone's ears means beating the hell out of them.

The basic plot, as near as I can tell, is of a woman and her abusive husband, living out in the sticks somewhere. She is unable to bear children, and he is continually punishing her for it. The medallion is either the memory of her lost daughter, or the secret of some other lover.

Assuming Colin Meloy based this on some book...he's a real lit geek. But God, what a great song.

agreed with thedouglas. this song is spectacular and what really got me into the decemberists

Boxing someone's ears doesn't mean to beat the hell out of them, though it is painful. Bascially, it's the action of using both hands to smack someone up side both sides of their head at the same time. Think cymbols clashing together with a head inbetween.

I think the first daughter might be a miscarriage as well, tying into the "barren in her belly" line. And the medallion could possibly be a Saint Anthony of Padua medallion, since he's regarded as the patron of childless married women.

I'm guessing the song is a reference to surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp's "La mariée mise à nu par ses cèlibataires" which translates as "the married woman stripped bare by her bachelors."

However, I am unintelligent and don't really know how the song ties into the artwork beyond that.

It's their wedding night. The're in a church. The wrinkle in the water is holy water their first daughter was baptised in. He doesn't want to wait til the honeymoon later that night, he wants it now.

i think perhaps the infanta is something of a continuation of this story, because of the rather sly hints at the daughter's questionable birth in the infanta.

as kickabout wrote, the title of this song is a reference to the duchamp piece. just thought i should mention the proper translation of the title is 'the bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even', also known as the 'large glass'.

A tale of a baptism (of the bride, years before), abuse, lost love, illicit affairs, barrenness. Yeah, this is the Decemberists. One of their most violent and most beautiful.

There is a wrinkle in the water....there is...