Winter Windows

God has come into a lonely soul's life. He has his difficulties living in his world as evidenced by his drinking bourbon, He reflects upon his past life as a young man and is told to be accepted by God he has to give up his wants.

This man's life shows a corrupt society with an abusive father. Even when the man is grown up, his father's abuse continues to haunt him and inflict pain in his life, forcing him to resort to alcohol. He settled down and had a child, but his troubled past made him an unfit father and the mother left with his son. The man looks upon the simplicity of the bird through the winter windows, wishing for a different life.

This is the world, this is the world we live in It's not the one I choose but it's the one we're given

This piece is about a man whom society has rejected. Perhaps it was inspired by someone in the artist's life, but it could also just be a hypothetical/fictional story about such a person.

The man's father never expressed love or for him, and from that the man has never been able to define love. The man's inheritance from his father appears to just be a chair. Perhaps the rest went to his brother who "held" the narrator down for sixty years (the father must have been playing favorites). Perhaps as a boy who was taught "he was the bad one," it became too much for the man who may have tried to down himself in a river.

The part that gets me is when the man speaks to his shadow. While listening I thought he was speaking to a lover, and then when I heard "Said the man, said the man to his shadow" there was a bit of a lump in my throat... that verse is particularly heavy. However so, the man did had a lover at one point in his life, hence the existence of a son he has not spoken to for 5 years. Maybe the man is addressing that lover in his life, except she is not beside him any longer (only his shadow is) because he hit her (abuse is a cyclical behavior).

I think this song is about fighting his inner demons of his past of his abusive father and how it comes to haunts him in his adult life time to time. Its more of a remembrance of his life as a child.

"The voice crackles when he says that God will save you"

someone or something mocking the boy for considering God?

It's about true loneliness.

"There is a man inside a room in the forest He sits alone upon the chair his father left him In the dark, in the dark, in the dark with the radio on"

Obviously, alone in a house by himself sitting in a chair that his father 'left' (he died) him. He's in the dark, referencing loneliness even farther, listening to nothing but the radio.

"The voice crackles when he says that God will save you He will take you from the lonely life you're living If you give, if you give, if you give up on what you want"

He's lost his faith through his loneliness, in God and the rest of the world. He'll take you from your lonely life if you give up on what you want (life). Showing that death is the only option left for this man.

"The man stands and pours himself another bourbon He stops and watches the birds through the winter windows"

Drinking; universal sign for sadness being a depressant. He watches the birds outside of his window thinking of another life and his longing.

"'I thought I love you and our love would be forever How could I hit you, the only one who ever loved me?' Said the man, said the man to his shadow"

Fantastic use of imagery. Shows that all he had left was himself, but after many years of being alone he's even lost faith within himself.

Great song.

"The voice crackles when it says that god will save you."

Such an excellent line, representative of the foolish pursuit known as religion.

"I thought I love you and our love would be forever How could I hit you, the only one who ever loved me?" Said the man, said the man to his shadow.

This brings forth such fantastic imagery!!!

Such a beautiful song!