Angle of Repose

"This garden we’ve planted will come up around us And take us all down in a great big avalanche Of useless things, of persistently plastic things, Of things that cost us this tiny world of tiny kings"

If the garden is industry and all it's products (including pollution and corruption) and the narrator "I" is the earth it's self then the song can easily take the form of a warning to consumerism.

I think it's about how the banality of existence drives us mad, because we're supposed to be curious and explorative of things, yet we can't hold onto the significance of those, ie. we "forget them all by day". It's about facing the chaotic, psychological hell of the meaninglessness of life, to put it simply. It's actually portrayed very disturbingly in this song because Carla (the violinist who sings this song) starts out indeed in almost a child-like hush, a curious, semi-innocent tone, but by the time of "I buried the laughter and cried" she's gone completely insane with despair. That moment usually makes me shed a tear, it's so powerful.

I think it's giving our planet a voice as something seperated, and over all opposed, to humanity. We are the worm-like subjects of it's ironically human-like narrative, suggesting the pervesity not of the hyuman genus, but of human progression. The lyrics establish itself on the notion of heiarchy amoungst humans, one of our most distinct traits of division, and automatically asserts the idea that the globe is speaking as a subject to us as parasites. The nursury rhyme like nature of the first verse also asserts an air of infantile simplicity in this panthiest, yet nihilistic vision of us, and creates an eerie sense of inevitability and immediancy in our coming demise mentioned at the end, the 'avalanche' of our customs- as it is reminiscent of the taunting, mechanuical nature of a child's chant. I'm drawn to the line 'Or was it day that invaded night' as it is a very direct inversion of human ideals- we feel as an innate habit that nocturnal hours are contrary to life, thus are evil and restrictive, yet by the definitions of the ambivalant earth night and day intersect equally- our 'season' is given no special significance against the behemoth of prevalant nature, which will indeed be our demise over 'persistantly plastic things'. I also find the notion of 'tiny kings' impressive as this is conveyed clearly by the childlike simplicity of the stanza, which observes us from a celestial perspective, making human-contrived status irrelivant so long as the world, or at least us, are terminated. In fact, our death means little compared to the rest of nature: are drawn lines and borders are virulent and needs to be purged. The reference to burying and planting of humanity's customs shows the persistance of our existance, and the selectivity of burying the 'dead', the 'battle' and the 'dancing' as opposed to the planting of 'songs', 'laughter' and 'stories' shows prefence to man in metaphysical form, the spiritual outlets of humanity, as human in activity (thus the movement invovle in dancing as oppsed to singing) equates to death, or at least pestilance and ultimately pointlessness. Overall, as is typical of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, humanity is made a spectacle as something meaningless, a spectacle to things we cannot deny nor understand- thus the ironic use of a very human voice for the earth. It is contradictorary that we are seen as meaningless, yet these lyrics are a meaningful striving to understand things (art), and ironically done or not, this only in turn shows their is more beyond us, whether it is the worms below our feet or the skies above.

I have some incomplete musings that are probably wrong:

Today I came across the phrase "lying in repose" and thought of this song. "Lying in repose" is where a dead person is displayed to the public. So in that context, "in repose" means "dead". It also brings in the idea of displaying the dead (thing) to the public, possibly as a part of the grieving process.

"Angle of repose" is a technical scientific thing that seems to be related to how high something can be piled up before the pile will collapse. This seems spot on for explaining the last stanza about the "avalanche"; keep piling up more and more (something), and eventually it comes crashing down.

"In repose" can also just mean "resting", rather than dead.

"I am made of tonnes of tiny countries" always grabbed me as an interesting lyric. My first thought was that it was talking about a person being a complex, multi-faceted, sometimes conflicting within themselves -- being. It could also just be about actual countries; setting the stage of the song with the Earth as the protagonist. That seems less interesting to me, but maybe that's it.

"I buried the dead and they came stories" made me think of someone grieving. You bury the dead, then they take on a new "life" in the world and to their survivors, as stories told and remembered.

"I planted the stories, they came up singing I planted the song and it came up dancing"

At each stage of crystalization and transformation of what was the person and their impact, the themness becomes more positive. First, singing (I imagine here a /gentle/ singing - someone singing wistfully to themselves in an empty house one day while thinking of a memory of the deceased), and then positively dancing (no-holds-barred, energetic joie-de-vivre).

"I buried the dance and it Came up facing home"

I got nothing on these two. "Facing home" seems like it has to mean something, but I don't know what.