Your Protector

I think that: "I'm the one in the shootin' game"

Should be: "On the morning that you came"

It's a song about a resistance fighter, told from the viewpoint of his lover who has a premonition of his death.

The girl and her family are living under an occupation but are sympathetic to the resistance- hence the need to "keep your secrets with you...safe from the outside world" and "you run with the devil." In the dream, she is there with him when he is killed. The resistance fighter tells her what she needs to tell her various family members: "tell your sister not to go (looking for me)," "tell your mother not to wait (for me)," "tell your father I was good."

She's gone to look for him "she left a week to roam." The resistance fighter is coming home to her as a dream since he can't come back physically and telling her to go home.

I think it's supposed to be

As you lay tonight beside me On the morning that you came Would you wait for me The other one Would wait for me

It's such a beautiful song, my favourite Fleet Foxes song.

Such a beautiful song by such a lovely band. I don't know about favourite songs but this one really captured my attention.

Also not relating to this song, but to the band in general, I love the end of the description on the album: Music is a weird and cosmic thing, its own strange religion for nonbelievers, and what a joy it is to make, in any form.

LyricWiki says:

"She left a week to roam, Your protector's coming home. Keep your secrets with you girl, safe from the outside world.

You walk along the stream, Your head caught in a waking dream, Your protector's coming home, coming home.

As you lay to die beside me, baby, On the morning that you came. Would you wait for me? The other one would wait for me.

As you lay to die beside me, baby, On the morning that you came. Would you wait for me? The other one would wait for me.

You run with the devil. You run with the devil.

Tell your brother to be good, Tell your sister not to go, Tell your mother not to wait, Tell your father I was good.

As you lay to die beside me, baby, On the morning that you came. Would you wait for me? The other one would wait for me."

...and I agree.

A) "She left her wheat to roam" instead of "she left a week to roam"

• It sounds like he's saying "her" not "a"
• There is no significance to the word "week"... why is it important that she left for a week? It makes no sense.
• Wheat, on the other hand, makes sense because it implies the simple life of a farm--and that is her home, which she has left in order to roam. This lyric fits a lot of "old world" contexts, whether its seventeenth century England or the nineteenth century American west.

D) "As you lay to die beside me, on the morning the shootin' came" instead of "As you lay tonight beside me on the morning that you came"

• "As you lay TONIGHT beside me ON THE MORNING" makes no sense... it can't be both night and morning.

• It simply sounds like "to die" and not "tonight"

• Although it does sound like he could be saying "that'ch'you ca'ame", it also sounds like he could be saying "the shootin' ca'ame".

• If she's dying, that also seems to imply that it's "the morning the shootin' came". Otherwise, why is she dying? There is no other explanation for why she's dying, which is why the lyric "shooting" makes more sense.

• "Shooting" fits in with the possible old world/old west feel to the song

E) While I'm not sure about the meaning of:

Tell your brother to be good, Tell your sister not to go, Tell your mother not to wait,

I do think, "Tell your father I was good" fits in with the old world/old west theme again, because here it appears that perhaps he was some sort of renegade and because she got involved with him, she got caught in the crossfire of whatever trouble he was involved in. I think the "tell your father I was good" lyric is the renegade saying that he was a good guy or that his intentions were good, even if his actions were misunderstood.

I was initially confused about who the "characters" in these lyrics were. There are a lot of aliases (me/I, you/your, girl, baby, she, your protector, the devil, the other one), so I tried to read the lyrics naively and figure out who the "characters" are before trying to interpret anything. I think there are 3 main characters:

The narrator - me/I A girl - you/your, girl, baby The addressee's "Protector" - she (the one who "left a week to roam"), your protector, the devil

Read like this, the first two stanzas very bleak. the girl is isolated, abandoned by her "Protector", in a haze, hoping in vain for her "Protector"'s return. In the next stanzas, the girl wanders into the narrator's house and lays down "to die". The narrator then reproaches her (contrasts her with "the other one", who the narrator seems to trust, and compares her "Protector" to the devil), then asks her to pass a message on to her family.

I'd guess that the girl is an ex-girlfriend who abandoned him for a bad crowd (including her "Protector") and "the other one" is his current significant other, who the narrator trusts deeply and isn't willing to abandon for the girl when she comes crawling back to him.

I can't guess individual meaning of the messages the narrator wants the girl to give to her family, but I'm guessing he was also close to them and wants to let them know how he feels about the girl and what he thinks they should do for her.

I must agree with OVNS.

Also, "As you lay to die beside me" is "As you lay tonight beside me", no?

femfleur's got it right.