Kissing The Beehive

who cares what it's about on this one :). spencer/dan duet. fucking wolf parade. they could be moaning guttural grunts the entire time and it'd still be great

As the album's conclusion, imagine a speeding whirlwind of resurfacing story arcs. Each stanza during the second half offer conclusions and tie-ins to other songs of the album. For instance "Radio, radio..." stanza is linked to California Dreamer.

The song itself, a continuation of Wolf Parade's long-used theme of mistrust of God, depicts the land of creation in chaos. Foolish leaders, rampant warfare, depleting natural resources, intolerant fundamentalists, and disingenious people run amok. Problem of Evil and all that (the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of God, a force for infinite good)

Captain = God

It's so fully "cock", not "cap".

who gives a fuck what this song is about, quit trying to decode and just embrace the primitive. the last 2 minutes of this is pure mayhem, absolutely amazing.

I like the stanza that reads,

"Jonathan, Jonathan Waterfalls are running thin, you know Here's a Holy Grail for you to hold..."

The name Jonathan literally translates to "gift of God" from Hebrew. I think the "waterfalls are running thin" bit is a reference to how the advancement of human knowledge has closed the gap between what was previously considered miraculous and/or proof of God, and what is now easily explainable. A waterfall to a man thousands of years ago must have been an amazing sight, and they surely figured that something that massive and beautiful was set there for them by God himself.

The Holy Grail bit has to do with the way many people, in lieu of all the evidence to the contrary still cling to their faith. The Holy Grail is the most sought after Christian relic. To find it would insure that there actually was a God. When Spencer says, "Here's a holy grail for you to hold," he's saying, "Here's something that science hasn't explained away yet. Use it to justify your faith."

The way it's presented it seems to be spoken from God to his creation, or, Jonathan. But given the nature of the song I think it's more likely that this dialogue represents an internal conversation that one has with himself and misinterpreting it to be a message from God.

Honestly though, what a great song.

"Each stanza during the second half offer conclusions and tie-ins to other songs of the album."

Mm...I see the radio connection to California Dreamer, but don't see any other connections in those last stanzas. Though I do see a lot of throw backs in Dan's lyrics

"Our hearts beat regular time" :: "You know our hearts beat time out very slowly"

"The landscapes don't, rivers flowing by" :: "Getting tired of landscapes, we're just floating"

"We're just drifting on my long hair with the flies" :: "Until then don't tear your hair out, I won't tear it out if you don't"

Some of these may be a stretch. Just things I've noticed.

I believe this song is more so about human nature and our relationship to the natural world. The general idea of my interpretation is man's ignorance and lack of foresight.

"And fucking up your finger from pushing on the ring"

In other words maybe, assuming that things were meant for us even when they clearly don't fit....also about greed. We naturally assume that this world was made for us, this assumption leads us to do whatever we want with it...which as one can see today, detrimental to us (Fucking up the finger...)

"Crashing all the weddings wearing white"

Another statement where we disrupt order and hold no courtesy for nature. For anyone who doesn't know, only the bride is supposed to wear white at the wedding. It is her special day and she should be distinguished from guests. By wearing white, you show a lack of respect to the 'bride' by thinking the rules don't apply to you.

I think the next line is really beautiful, about the cap in the air and face on the glass. This I believe is saying, that our attempts at music and art in comparison to nature's beauty...is like comparing the a hat to a guitar. By holding it up, you also see that we are very proud, and still oblivious.

The song here increases tempo and becomes more frantic. Fire in the hole is a distress signal that would be used for an explosion in a closed area. In the same way, in this second part of the song, our lack of foresight does catch up to us. Its realized that the earth is a closed system and our resources provided by nature are not going to always be here (waterfalls are running thing).

That's one interpretation I thought of...I did not address everything, but gave my basic idea which may be completely wrong. Looking forward to see what other people interpret

there is another long song, 10-14 minutes or so, with the same music but different lyrics called Crazy Horse or Wish You Wouldn't Cry... anyone know the words to that? Or more about it and how it became kissing the beehive?

That's just Kissing the Beehive before they finished working on it.

"Crazy Horse" is "Kissing the Beehive". They played the song several times live and named it "Crazy Horse" but they changed the lyrics for the album. Unfortunately they did this! I loved the old lyrics, they are awesome. With changing the lyrics Spencer (and I think he did this) changed the whole song, the meaning of the "original" song. Well, he wrote the original song, too, so I think this is ok =D The song is awesome, with or without the new lyrics.