Rescued

I'm pretty confident that this song has a rather specific interpretation, and that I understand what it is pretty clearly. Check out my interpretation of "Kill the Messenger", because this is a concept album about Andrew's summer, and everything ties together. This song, of course, is about the end of his summer, hence "this" was "lying at the bottom of her swimming pool some September", like it was bound to happen. This is the clean break attempt to end all clean breaks, in a sense ("I'm Ready" is an attempt to make a clean break after vacation ends in "Bruised". "La La Lie" is about the denial that follows the end of a relationship he really didn't want to lose. "Dark Blue" is about how lonely he felt in the arms of a rebound chick. "Miss Delaney" is about the rebound chick he thought could make him happy, but he was of course mistaken because she was a liar. In "Kill the Messenger", he's reunited with the girl he really wants, but it's so agonizing that he essentially creates an alter-ego to distance himself from her enough to push her away for the last time, which surprisingly doesn't work, as here we are at "Rescued.")

Denial isn't the main theme of this song, but at this point the relationship is based on it ("your lips give you away"). And then he introduces the storm analogy; don't think of a thunderstorm, but a hurricane (which interestingly enough is a Something Corporate song). The center of the storm, or the center of this tumultuous relationship, is perfectly quiet (look up the eye of the storm), like a moment of clarity. He's hearing this, like it's a jet engine through the center of the storm, something that's perfectly obvious when everything else quiets down. He's come to realize this, so this is the last time, because he now sees the right thing to do.

And he doesn't want to be "rescued", because that means revisiting the denial. He's been rescued many times before, as the two been bouncing back and forth the entire summer, the whole album, and that doesn't work, so he's following himself instead of following her. He was "spun" when he paid attention and heard this jet engine roaring, and she seems to hear it as well. "Or this could take all year" if they both decide to close their ears again.

And when it's quiet, she really hears him for once, and he's "jettisoned" to the center of the storm. To "jettison" is to discard something from an aircraft that's in danger of wrecking, lightening its load to imrpove stability. She discards him, and he ends up in the center of the storm, where he finally realizes that he doesn't want to be rescued again.

At this point, she's struggling desperately to "keep him cold", to subdue the feelings that will lead them back together again. He's finally numb, so it worked, and during this moment of clarity he feels that he wants it to stay that way. Andrew's so devastated by all of this that he even wonders if this will be his "last song" (thankfully it wasn't).

Similar to the way her lips give her away, he can tell she's "raising hell to give to him", as in, she's creating havoc between the two of them because she wants to end it without outrightly rejecting him (ironically, in the same way that Andrew tries to "send a little rain her way" in "Kill the Messenger"). She "got him warm", which is to say she was the one, in the first place, who made him feel the opposite of cold and numb, so he doesn't want her to rescue him and make him feel that way again. He wants her to tell him she'll miss him one last time for closure's sake, and he sees letting her go as the strong thing to do.

And he's saying all this because once again, presumably the way he felt every time they bounced back to each other, he's feeling like he might need to be near her. He feels "alright", which is very difficult to do after a breakup like this, and he's desperately grasping that.

Happy ending, though. He ended up marrying the chick that this album is about (whom also happens to be the subject of most of Something Corporate's songs, as I understand it). I hope they've found happiness together. Andrew definitely deserves it.