Caves

I was surprised with the amount of activity on this song, that no one has come up with the same conclusion for the last half as I did. The first half is quite obvious, and I agree with what everyone has said about it. He's talking about the battle with cancer, the ups and the downs, the side effects of medication and eventually, about being saved by his sister's blood marrow and recovering.

But after that, I think he continues to talk about struggling, not about hope or inspiration. The line that makes this most obvious is "I fought a war to walk a gang plank into a life I left behind."

I've never had cancer, so I can't speak from personal experience, but its not at all hard to imagine that surviving cancer would be almost as difficult as fighting the cancer. He was on so much medication during the fight that his body will likely never be the same. He also likely had to completely put the rest of his life on hold so he could focus entirely on fighting the cancer. The people closest to him might have stuck around for that process, but others probably would have lost patience and disappeared from his life.

He's also repeatedly saying "doors got locked, there's no one here but me." I think going through any event that makes you confront your own mortality and then trying to relate to other people who have not been through that would be incredibly difficult. Just hearing people complain about their mundane problems when you know that any day you could die would be impossible. I'm sure going through that would basically, again, put an end to many relationships, or "lock the door" on those relationships, leaving him alone, as the only person that really understands what he went through.

I can hear the struggle in the music as well. Right after he say's "the walls fell and there I lay saved" you hear the joyous piano line. It almost sounds like Ode to Joy, and I'm sure that when he first got the news that the cancer was gone, that's how he must have felt. But then the music changes. You start to hear sounds of the music rewinding as if he is now traveling back in time. He's trying to get back to life the way it was before the cancer and slowly realizing that he can never go back. He may have survived the cancer, but it still stole many years of his life that he can never get back.

Absolutely amazing song with the most potential on his new album. As someone currently in the hospital with rare lymphoma, I highly relate to this song. The clicking machines of the IV pumps, pazine to prevent the repetitive chemo nausea... even the moments where you are so sedated that you aren't sure if you're alive or in a dream.

I was intubated twice with a breathing tube because of pneumonia also and nearly lost my life. Not sure how the lyrics in the song relate to his sight though. Marrows colliding and burning could relate to graft vs host issues with his bone marrow.

One thing is for sure. Cancer is a long process to fight and the walls of cancer hospitals feel like caves almost every day, especially after a stem cell transplant.

But ultimately the end of the song is the most inspirational, because it describes the positive outcome of it all.

I see that this subject is nearly dead, but I still feel like I'd like to add a bit. I see that there isn't really any comments about the religious aspect (or at least spiritual) of the song. The last verse isn't married, but burried. The entire thing is saying what if we die and nothing happens. What if nothing is what we become? That is the question that stares us all in the face as we approach death, and to have faced it at such a young age, as Andrew did, and come away with this outlook, is wonderful. Truly inspiring song.

K2007 says it best. It's so powerful, you're not sure what to do with it.

And out here I watch the sun circle the earth The marrows collide in rebirth In God's glory praise The spirit calls out from the caves. The walls fell and there I lay Saved.

I don't know if Andrew is religious but it would be pretty cool if he was referring to actually being saved, like becoming a Christian. Whenever I listen to this song, I have this image of him sitting in a hospital bed talking to God.

It's a beautiful song. The first part of the song is all melancholy as he's dealing with the leukemia and the surgeries and the recovery time and such. The second part is about how he becomes inspired.

Lovely :)

The lyrics are fantastic but when put with the song, I don't like it that much. Though I'm sure it'll grow on me by the time the album comes out.

Andrew said in an AP Interview that this was the song he wrote while trying to figure out "the sick thing". It definitely relates to his cancer and I'm sure it means a lot to him...

When I heard it, I thought it was "my bird dressed in white" or something.

I agree with nothardtodream, it'll probably take some time to get used to. Still, the piano sounds super pretty and so are the lyrics.

Yeah...

"And she sings my bird dressed in white And she stings my arm in the night."

I'm pretty sure the opening lyrics are "I'm caught somewhere in between a lie, and living the dream" not "I'm caught somewhere in between a lie and lying to me" but that's just from what i've heard on youtube and other videos. I was at the Ramapo concert and the piano is AMAZING in person.

Yeah it's definitely "alive and living in dreams".

I agree about Ramapo. I've seen videos and they're fantastic.

i can't wait for the release i love andrew.