Gabriel Lyrics
chapter of our correspondence
i hope that after time goes past
you can remember me with fondness
of all the pages that have seen us
laid out unending in between us
and we can walk them like the ground
but you tread softly on the ground tonight
tread softly on the words you used to write
that day i met you in the orchard
and i was younger then i wore my hair
in bows across my forehead
and fix the clasp against my neck
and i do not think you would know her
if you could see what they reflect
all wrapped in tapestry and fur i guess
remember me the way you knew me best
everything you sent me
everything you put to paper but
it's better to forget
than fill your head with memories
think that you will thank me later
could pick you up and fold you like a ribbon
i'd keep you always and in secret
in the pockets of my clothes
with all the parts that i was given
this is the heart that i was given
and what you're given can be sold
and i've been walking to her step to step
remember the way you knew me best
but you tread softly on the ground tonight
tread softly on the words you used to write
but you tread softly on the ground tonight
tread softly on the words you used to write
It seems more like she's marrying for money instead of love. Gabriel must be the man she loves, because why else would she keep everything he sent her- including his letters. She probably keep them if they were from a man she was going to use for money.
When she's saying things like "soon they will twist it at the shoulder and fix the clasp against my neck and i do not think you would know her", she's talking about herself on her wedding day, and she will be unlike to the girl he met in the orchard.
It seems like she and Gabriel were secret lovers, which is why she makes reference to his letters, telling him to "tread carefully" because she is soon to be a married woman...and why she wants to fold him up into her pocket like a "secret ribbon" (I don't know if that's a euphemism or not...)
It seems she's saying goodbye to her childhood sweetheart and is growing into a woman of society he wouldn't recognize.
am i the only person who thinks the fiddle sounds like the graduation song?
i think this song is about rejection of a religion. i don't really have any justification for it, but it's all i ever think when i listen to it. the idea of growing up and discovering that, in fact, what you've been taught all your childhood isn't what you really believe, nor want to believe.
anyway, regardless of it's meaning, i love this song!
i just read that emmy described this song as the tale of a 19th century woman choosing to marry for love, not money.
there we go
er at her show in nyc emmy said this was about a guy she used to talk to online.
I really do wish that whoever posted this had had the decency to capitalise. It really bugs me to see such a lovely song reduced to lower case. Also, I think that the first line of the second verse is "AND think as I am thinking now."
Annoyance at this representation aside, I adore this song. It always sounds to me like a girl saying goodbye to a childhood friend that she has grown apart from, in order to preserve his innocence as she is losing hers. She thinks the world of him, but she's destined to grow into a world that he wouldn't recognise, and so she's decided it would be best to end their correspondence. That's just the image it paints for me.