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Lost Verses Lyrics
I came out from under her warm sheets
Into the brisk late October
If only for one last hope
I wanted my time with you to be over
I’m staring up into the sky
While all the raining is pouring down
I’m reaching out for your help
But evil beings hold me backwards
All shapes and shadows move in and out
And hover round my bed
Voices arrive and disappear
I want to talk to them
Darkness disintegrates
I’m rising; I’m rising toward a light
A light leading over hills and meadows
I’ve risen up from the dead
With the burning leaves of autumn
If only for one last chance
That all of whom have been defeated
To put on my father’s wool coat
To smell my mother’s fragrances and perfumes
To find my young brothers and sisters
To never leave or let them go
Houses adorned so beautifully
The Marin headlands song
Lost verses well up my eyes and ears
The lone mandolin strums
On Tamalpais warm spring
The many places we
Lay down in sleepy hidden shadows
I see you well and clear
Deep in the moonlight dear
Your radiant august eyes
They are the suns that rise
They are the light that blinds
They end these lost verses
I came up from under the ocean
Evaporated sea salt water
A mist above the skyline
I haunt the streets of San Francisco
Watch over loved ones and old friends
I see them trough their living room windows
Shaken by fear and worries
I want them to know how I love them so
Foghorns would sound in waking
Is it my voice you hear?
Footsteps are moving across the floor
And you know I’m here
The afternoon carries up from the hills and you are well and near
To fall into the light I follow
I feel oh so near
When morning doves appear
And ghosts of April ring
Echo the refrain
Soon finding a place
In these lost verses
They fill the foggy day
They hide the hills away
That steal our time
They are the picturesque night
The casting city lights
On the bay flowing into the ocean glowing
Into the brisk late October
If only for one last hope
I wanted my time with you to be over
While all the raining is pouring down
I’m reaching out for your help
But evil beings hold me backwards
And hover round my bed
Voices arrive and disappear
I want to talk to them
I’m rising; I’m rising toward a light
A light leading over hills and meadows
With the burning leaves of autumn
If only for one last chance
That all of whom have been defeated
To put on my father’s wool coat
To smell my mother’s fragrances and perfumes
To find my young brothers and sisters
To never leave or let them go
The Marin headlands song
Lost verses well up my eyes and ears
The lone mandolin strums
On Tamalpais warm spring
The many places we
Lay down in sleepy hidden shadows
Deep in the moonlight dear
Your radiant august eyes
They are the suns that rise
They are the light that blinds
They end these lost verses
Evaporated sea salt water
A mist above the skyline
I haunt the streets of San Francisco
Watch over loved ones and old friends
I see them trough their living room windows
Shaken by fear and worries
I want them to know how I love them so
Foghorns would sound in waking
Is it my voice you hear?
Footsteps are moving across the floor
And you know I’m here
The afternoon carries up from the hills and you are well and near
To fall into the light I follow
When morning doves appear
And ghosts of April ring
Echo the refrain
Soon finding a place
In these lost verses
They hide the hills away
That steal our time
They are the picturesque night
The casting city lights
On the bay flowing into the ocean glowing
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Hauntingly beautiful and powerful... amazing song. I put it in my car CD player, and drove to Mt. Tamalpais, drove up and down Hwy. 1, down to the Marin Headlands and San Francisco... just to feel all this imagery in its native setting. Amazing.
As far as what it means, wow, it could be so many things. My instinct says the speaker is a ghost or someone gone looking back. "I haunt the streets of San Francisco / Watch over loved ones and old friends"...
Ooh, I get it. It's fog. They're the ghosts of the fog. The fog is personified - "I came up from under the ocean / Evaporated sea salt water / A mist above the skyline" - And I think he's personifying the fog as all of those ghosts, all those lost verses, the people still haunting the "Many places we / Lay down in sleepy hidden shadows" - Tamalpais, Marin Headlands, San Francisco - and watching over loved ones, peering into windows. These are the "ghosts of April" that "Fill the foggy day" and "hide the hills away" creeping "on the bay flowing into the ocean glowing."
Wow. I'll never look at fog the same way... beautiful. Just beautiful.
What a gorgeous insight to this song! Thank you!
What a gorgeous insight to this song! Thank you!
Oh my. This song takes my breath away every time. Astonishing.
So if I'm getting all of this correctly, it's a 2nd person account of Katy who has died, and her 'ghost' is personified as fog? Fucking brilliant, I love Koz.
Whoops, first person of Katy, 2nd person of Mark.
Whoops, first person of Katy, 2nd person of Mark.
Hence why I said "I think he's personifying the fog as all of those ghosts" - The fog is the ghosts, and he's one of them. So you're right, he's a ghost, but that's not all.
The ghost interpretation is correct. This song represents a break from his normal approach in that he is dead, rather than writing about coping with someone else's death. What's so interesting is that even though it is written from the opposite perspective, it still carries the same themes and emotions. Lost verses is probably a metaphor for separation.
Oh, my God. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful song. I'm repeating this the whole day!
I think he's a ghost, not fog. But I could be wrong.
I think he just happens to be calling fog 'ghostly' in what you're referring to.
I think he just happens to be calling fog 'ghostly' in what you're referring to.
I don't get the lyrics but these two verses indicatet that it's about someone who died.
"Darkness disintegrates I’m rising; I’m rising toward a light"
"I’ve risen up from the dead With the burning leaves of autumn"
The ghost interpretation is correct. This song represents a break from his normal approach in that he is dead, rather than writing about coping with someone else's death. What's so interesting is that even though it is written from the opposite perspective, it still carries the same themes and emotions. Lost verses is probably a metaphor for separation.
The ghost interpretation is correct. This song represents a break from his normal approach in that he is dead, rather than writing about coping with someone else's death. What's so interesting is that even though it is written from the opposite perspective, it still carries the same themes and emotions. Lost verses is probably a metaphor for separation.
If biographical interpretation is of any interest to you, Mark Kozelek says in an interview with Fuzz.com that 'Lost verses' is about the death of the "Katy"-person from "Katy song" and all those old Red House records... http://www.fuzz.com/articles/article/Mark-Kozelek-of-Sun-Kil-Moon-129
yeah i keep reading about how Katy was his muse so that what make sense that "Lost Verses" (arguably his masterpiece) is about her passing ("I came up from under her warm sheets") and so she is the fog personified as ghost. i love the senses of time and place in his songs.
yeah i keep reading about how Katy was his muse so that what make sense that "Lost Verses" (arguably his masterpiece) is about her passing ("I came up from under her warm sheets") and so she is the fog personified as ghost. i love the senses of time and place in his songs.
"All shapes and shadows move in and out" they could be the surgeons or loved ones moving around his hospital bed. People are talking about or to him; he can hear them but is dying and cannot speak.
"Darkness disintegrates" Death arrives and the song transitions to the afterlife. He see the light leading up to the heavens, his soul is departing and he is taking his last chance to see the world.