Soluble In Air

Beautiful song, one of their best :) I think this is just about making the most of life and just getting on with it, no matter what happens ('You're young not twice but once') But whatever it means, this song is wonderful, typical of Mystery Jets <3

This is one of my favourites. The lyrics always remind me of the play 'Dr Faustus', where in his final soliloquy Faustus cries out to be turned into 'water drops' and to 'fall into the ocean, never to be found', rather than face the damnation that awaits him. The speaker here, comparing his situation to this tragedy (similarly crying 'oh let me be soluble in air!'), demonstates the kind of self-centred nature of young men, and their tendency to overly dramatise things. He is for instance, unlikely to be concerned with the possibility of damnation, and is probably more likely to be having 'girl-trouble'.

If you want to go further with the Dr Faustus thing, you could again argue that the speaker here is suggesting that it would be better to be a tragic figure in a play/ story: 'To be the hero of my own story, forsee the events of my life.' He feels insecure because he does not know specifically what trouble to expect in life, whereas in many tragic plays (including Dr Faustus) the chorus reveals the main plot before the actors have even taken to the stage.

In short then, the verses are considerations of whether or not it would be better to know what tragedies await you in life, while the chorus is a kind of melodramatic desire to cease to exist (or at least to be stripped of all the burdens placed upon mankind), so as not to have to face them whatever they may be.