Made From Tiny Boxes

This song is great. I don't think it means much of anything. Just amazing.

You're right, it doesn't mean anything.

But man is it great.

the best part is when he says "i love unicorns" lol

After listening to this song dozens of times thinking it was simply beautiful nonsense, a possible meaning fell into place.

Although the line "I love unicorns" is amusing, I think I is used to emphasize the speaker's utter emotional collapse resulting from the painful end of a relationship. He was so hurt by the fickle physical love of the real world, that he turns to a mythical, majestic creature. If he loves something that doesn't exist, how can anyone ever take that love away from him?

This may seem far-fetched, but I think it's possible. Either way, I love the song. I've got a lot of other possible reasons, but I'll leave it at that.

I don't entirely disagree with echoesofairplanes that there is a connection between unicorns and the object of the failed relationship, but I think it makes more sense to connect both "I love unicorns, I loved you once" to the brige "I was a house once, I moved out you moved away." Unicorns are mythical creatures, but I think in the sense in which he uses it in the song is to compare his relationship "I loved you once" to an illusory idea - i.e. the unicorn. In other words his love for this person was just as made up as fictional an idea as a unicorn. Unicorns also are a symbol of the air, of transcendence. I think it could seem like a potentially positive figure until they're placed in context of the other elements - particularly earth, the other medium in which the unicorn operates. Earth is practical, grounded, realistic, and air in the context of a relatioship is probably to be regarded as lofty, and superficial.

In the bridge he says "I was a house once, I moved out..." The house is obviously symbolic of his relationship with the object of the song - the house, often being a literary symbol for a person himself, is an object that is built from human effort, and is (very much like the unicorn) not an object that occurs in nature. It suggests both planning and effort, both very rational and conscious pursuits, but love cannot be obtained rationally, it comes from the more emotive, unconscious, irrational part of onesself.

Both the house and the unicorn are constructs, one is constructed physically and one is a construct of the mind. "I moved out" I think means that once he realized his love for her was as illusory as a unicorn he checked out emotionally (e.g. moved out). If he "was a house" how could he move out of it? Clearly he couldn't if he actually was the house. I think we're supposed to understand he thought he was one thing and ended up being very wrong about it. He felt at one time the house (something he constructed consciously) "was him" but discovered there is a part of him that's not rational and conscious and did not respond to the illusory nature of the situation with this other person; he couldn't fabricate love. She then, consequently had no reason to stay so she left.

I am of course speculating, but I haven't seen any better explanations on this one yet.