The Trees

I'm pretty sure the bit about carving her name is literal. When you carve something in a tree, it grows out of shape - the tree grows unevenly, so the image gets distorted. "Like our love." ♥

I just found a quote of Jarvis talking about this song (on the website acrylicafternoons.com). He says: "In a romantic situation, people carve names on them and stuff, 'cos, I guess, you get some kind of permanence by doing it. But go back five years later and you can't read it 'cos trees don't grow uniformly - you're left with a distorted blob. The idea is, trees keep growing long after a relationship has gone down the pan."

Eloquently put. Tht's pretty much what I was trying to say in my last comment anyway.♥

I love the thought of the trees as silent witnesses and also the frustration in their silence: "I might as well just go and tell it to the trees".

I just read that a magpie is a symbol of happiness and joy in the Chinese culture. The first line is probably symbolic of his destruction of a relationship.

On the other hand, Jarvis could have committed murder, which makes it that much more intriguing.

i think this song is about something bad he did that has ended his relationship " he shot the magpie "meaning he killed his relationship.i find it dificult to understand what the trees are but obviously the trees are used as a metaphor.

bittersweet little pulp number, this one.

Jarvis' comments: That was the last song we wrote. I'd had the song we sample in it [Tell Her You Love Her by Stanley Myers and Hal Shaper] for about four or five years and wanted to write a song around it. I'd had loads of goes. We were getting to the end of the sessions, so we had one more go and we nailed it. I'd like to point out that I've never shot an animal with an air rifle! There was an air pistol at my granny's when I was growing up and I was allowed to play with it without any pellets in it. As soon as I got to an age where I might have wanted to go out and shoot creatures, it was hidden. So I've never shot even a magpie... even though they are one of my least favourite because they bully other birds and they spoil their nests and stuff like that. They're a bit of a pest actually. The idea of the lyrics in that song is just [..] the idea of the trees being there and all the kind of human dramas that could happen in a forest: people meeting for an illicit affair or whatever, like that. But the trees are impassive to that. And the way that people will carve their name on the bark of a tree, thinking that's some kind of mark of permanence in a relationship, but then you go back a year or two later and try and read it, it'll be all like [twisted], because the tree doesn't grow in a linear way.

I agree with pumpkinhed, how can those two lines "your body so pale against the autumn leaves & no-one saw us but the trees" be seen as anything him killing the girl, presumably in a fit of rage after her breaking up with him. Then him wishing he hadn't done it, and telling it to the trees, but obviously the trees can't do anything about it. Sure the caring of their names into a tree is a metaphors (and a good one at that) of their relationship being distorted and different from when it was carved, but it seems obvious to me that he killed her too

I was in high school when I was really into Pulp and this was in the suburbs of Toronto and a good few years after their big boom. Partying full blast during the rave era when Brit pop was blowing up would have been pretty wild.

Anyhow, I always felt it was a mature song. Very melancholy and nostalgic, but obvously lovely. The video too.

Anyhow, love comes and goes and burns brightly and passes and then we have sad memories of happy times. The smell of leaf mould and the sweetness of decay. In the end, its just you and the trees.