A bad dream shook me in my sleep
And I woke up sweating
Ran through the dark to the shower
Already forgetting

Try to think good thoughts
Trying to find my way clear
Let the room fill with steam
Trace pictures on the mirror

Ghosts and clouds
And nameless things
Squint your eyes and hope real hard
Maybe sprout wings

I clawed my way to the living room window
Stood there in the cold
The last bits of my dream like figures in the distance
Hard to hold

I thought of old friends
the one's who'd gone missing
Said all their names three times
Phantoms in the early dark
Canaries in the mines


Ghosts and clouds
And nameless things
Squint your eyes and hope real hard
Maybe sprout wings


Lyrics submitted by mdon06

Maybe Sprout Wings song meanings
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    My Interpretation

    This song is full of double meanings. The line "maybe sprout wings" can either be taken as wishing one could grow wings and fly away, or an allusion to death and angel's wings. He's both wishing for a childlike fantasy of being able to escape by flight and hoping for death. "Ghosts and clouds, and nameless things" is the most powerful line for me... it's both the literal pictures he draws in the mirror, and the things his friends have become. They're dead, or missing, and now all that's left of them are half-forgotten memories, phantoms and whispers in the dark. "Canaries in the mines" could also be a morbid reference to drug use - his friends may have been poisoned or overdosed by their own drugs, making them like canaries indicating the toxicity of a mine to be entered. Their lives were insignificant enough to be thrown away for the dubious benefit of serving as a warning to others, hence they're little more than fleeting canaries.

    Basically, the story of this song as I see it is a man who awakens from a nightmare about something perhaps nebulously related to old friends he's lost. He makes a steam room out of his shower and childishly draws pictures in his mirror, wishing as he does so that he could just sprout wings and fly away. When the hot water runs out he stumbles into the other room and stares at himself in the reflection of the window, trying to remember his dream, and sees shapes in the shadows that remind him of his friends. He says their names three times to try to summon their spirits, but their lives were too meaningless to even haunt him. He can barely remember them or the dream he had about them. They're ghosts, clouds, and nameless things... and he wishes he could join them.

    It's an absolutely heart-wrenching song and it damned near made me cry the first time I heard it.

    basseron September 18, 2013   Link

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