Transient

This is one of the best Peter Koppes songs, period. I think it's about his impression of a moment traveling on the L.A. trains, since much of the record was written and recorded in and about L.A.

At the end of a train ride, he has to rush out due to the pressure of the people wanting to do the same. He finds that it is night, or that night is approaching, and "there [is] a part of now [remaining] in yesterday," which seems to be a way of saying how it's a scene that never changes--busy people preoccupied with their thoughts, going here or there on their agendas. And while "a world passes by" in this manner, in a "hurry for fear [of missing] the show," whatever the show is, he takes the whole thing in.

Since they're from Australia, where leaves probably do fall in May, he begins to think weird stuff about the differences in seasons between home and where he is--in other words, he's getting homesick (and this is exactly what happened to the band).

Although not an island, L.A. is truly an island unto itself, inhabiting an alien time and space--a "coincidence away"--relative to what he is used to back home on his island continent. I'm not from L.A., myself, but I've been there many times, and I'm always struck by how different it is from the rest of America, even other cities in California.

Anyway, this is my take on what it might be all about. Regardless, though, it truly stands out as a great song on an album that gets panned too much.