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.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary
Hair of gold and lips like cherries
We go down to the river where the willows weep
Take a naked root for a lovers seat
That rose out of the bitten soil
But bound to the ground by creeping ivy coils
Oh Mary you have seduced my soul
Forever a hostage of your child's world
And then I ran my tin-cup heart along
The prison of her ribs
And then with a toss of her curls
That little girl goes wading in
Rolling her dress up past her knee
Turning these waters into wine
Then she platted all the willow vines
Mary in the shallows laughing
Over where the carp dart
Spooked by the new shadows that she cast
Across these sad waters and across my heart
Hair of gold and lips like cherries
We go down to the river where the willows weep
Take a naked root for a lovers seat
That rose out of the bitten soil
But bound to the ground by creeping ivy coils
Oh Mary you have seduced my soul
Forever a hostage of your child's world
And then I ran my tin-cup heart along
The prison of her ribs
And then with a toss of her curls
That little girl goes wading in
Rolling her dress up past her knee
Turning these waters into wine
Then she platted all the willow vines
Mary in the shallows laughing
Over where the carp dart
Spooked by the new shadows that she cast
Across these sad waters and across my heart
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Only 2 comments...that's surprising. I always thought this was a well loved song - maybe i'm just weird in my Nick tastes.
Honestly, for me (though i love the album version) this song took on a whole new life when they did the bare bones version found on the lecture "The Secret Life of the Love Song" - Warren Ellis elevates it to a new realm of incredible, and Nicks piano is more heartbreaking than usual. Particularly the whole run of Duende that precedes it. About love songs being hate songs in disguise and how you need a balance to be able to write convincingly about the dark and the light - "so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyrics, one must sense and acknowledgment for it's capacity for suffering"
this song is a perfect example - lyrically nothing is inherently sad - however the song just is - because Nick understands, that to love something so much will eventually mean a equal amount of sorrow and its permeates this song entirely.
To me this is a song about a girl he loved long ago and is no longer with, but is clearly still carries her in his heart - perhaps when they were both much younger. Perhaps the girl is simply just young at heart, like and adorable girl you love can be - (i know its written present tense, but thats the sense it evokes for me.)
This is perhaps because i associate (the lecture version specifically) with the first true "love of my life" - i was certainly a hostage of her child's world (ship song as well holds a place in my heart for her) which seems similar in its way here - i love you, i love you so much, but this can not be.....whatever the reason maybe it.....it simply can not, and my heart can barely handle that fact. But i shall fondly remember you braiding williow vines and laughing in the water (we use to spend time in Boston under all the weeping willows in the public garden. I do miss her so. And this song is a wonderful reminder of our carefree days together.) Thank you Nick.