In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
I dreamed you were a cosmonaut
Of the space between our chairs
And I was a cartographer
Of the tangles in your hair
I sang the song that silence brings
It's the one that everybody knows, everybody knows
The song that silence sings
And this, this is how it goes
These looms that weave apocrypha
They're hanging from a strand
This dark and empty rooms were full
Of incandescent hands
Awkward pause, the fatal flaw
Time, it's a crooked bow
Time is a crooked bow
Time you need to learn to love
The ebb just like the flow
Grab hold of your bootstraps and pull like hell
Until gravity feels sorry for you and lets you go
As if you lack the proper chemicals to know, oh
The way it felt the last time you let yourself fall this low
Time, time it's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow, oh, ooh
Fifty-five and three-eighths years later
At the bottom of this gigantic crater
An armchair calls to you
Yeah, this armchair calls to you
And it says that someday we'll get back at them all
With epoxy and a pair of pliers
As ancient sea slugs begin to crawl
Through the ragweed and barbed wire, oh
You didn't write, you didn't call
It didn't cross your mind at all, hey
Through the waves, the waves of hay and straw
You couldn't feel a thing at all
Fifty-five and three-eighths, time
Fifty-five and three-eighths time, time
Of the space between our chairs
And I was a cartographer
Of the tangles in your hair
I sang the song that silence brings
It's the one that everybody knows, everybody knows
The song that silence sings
And this, this is how it goes
These looms that weave apocrypha
They're hanging from a strand
This dark and empty rooms were full
Of incandescent hands
Awkward pause, the fatal flaw
Time, it's a crooked bow
Time is a crooked bow
Time you need to learn to love
The ebb just like the flow
Grab hold of your bootstraps and pull like hell
Until gravity feels sorry for you and lets you go
As if you lack the proper chemicals to know, oh
The way it felt the last time you let yourself fall this low
Time, time it's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow, oh, ooh
Fifty-five and three-eighths years later
At the bottom of this gigantic crater
An armchair calls to you
Yeah, this armchair calls to you
And it says that someday we'll get back at them all
With epoxy and a pair of pliers
As ancient sea slugs begin to crawl
Through the ragweed and barbed wire, oh
You didn't write, you didn't call
It didn't cross your mind at all, hey
Through the waves, the waves of hay and straw
You couldn't feel a thing at all
Fifty-five and three-eighths, time
Fifty-five and three-eighths time, time
Lyrics submitted by bobwronski
Armchairs Lyrics as written by Andrew Wegman Bird
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Some thoughts, in case anyone finds them useful:
"armchair something" - eg, an armchair quarterback - refers to someone removed from the actual action. Webster's puts it really well: "remote from direct dealing with problems." There's a lot of passivity/inaction in this song.
"a cosmonaut of the space between our chairs" conjures up not simply the great distance between them, but a cosmonaut is also free of gravity (more on gravity below). Cartographers not only deal with distances, but they deal with them at an analytic/conceptual remove (ie, maps are only representations of what they represent).
No one's mentioned it and it may be obvious, but looms, weaving, and cut strands are classic references to the Greek Fates. Even if the "incandescent hands" are the hands of a clock, they also tie in the to the weaving, which amazes me.
When he talks about pulling yourself up until "gravity...lets you go," it could refer to simply pulling yourself out of an armchair, out of a depression, or, if you link it to the cosmonaut idea, pulling yourself out of yourself and towards someone else. Gravity here could also imply a grave mood, an overseriousness. In this respect, the song reminds me as well of Weather Systems, as mentioned above.
"You didn't write/You didn't call...You didn't feel a thing at all" could be the speaker yelling at himself for not having done anything, for his own "awkward pause/fatal flaw," and then for sitting through an emotional storm (waves, squall) in a state of numbness/inaction. More armchair passivity, and regret.
I love the above thoughts on time as a tensed and dangerous bow (and also the implication of a single shot, a single chance). It's also occurred to me that the mathematical/scientific symbol for infinity resembles a crooked bow, but I don't think the idea of infinity adds much here, unless you want to invoke time just dragging on.
I think that's all for now, except to add that I am greatly amused by the fact of Google ads for actual armchairs appearing to the right of these lyrics.