Wake

On the surface this album tells the story of a hospice worker who falls in love with a patient dying of bone cancer. Beneath that, the album is an allegory for an emotionally abusive relationship. Since the album covers (at least) those two bases, I will look at it from those perspectives as well. In other words, this will contain first a base analysis and then a secondary deeper analysis.

At the base level, a wake is a ceremony performed after someone has died, before the traditional funeral, and these lyrics appear to be about that, in a very broad and all encompassing sense. This is a song about the aftermath of death and what it does to those closest. The narrator is an emotional wreck; after everything's he's been through with her, he's reduced to "sleeping next to mousetraps in a bed of all our clothes." He's shutting people out, locking the doors and killing the phones. But in the end, ceremony calls for it and he has to deal with people, let them in, and confront the truth of the situation: that she's dead and isn't coming back. Someone earlier suggested that the "well you can come inside" part is referring to a single friend he's confiding in, and I'm inclined to agree. A lot of this song feels like it was written shortly after the wake, in those lonely moments where everyone's gone and the bereaved is alone again.

However, there is so much more going on here than what we see at the base level, and I want to explore that in depth for the rest of this review. Because in addition to being about confronting death, and dealing with the wake, this is also a song about dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship. I would argue that the death we saw in Shiva represented the relationship's ending, and "Wake" is what happens to the victim after it's over and he or she is left alone.

I believe when the speaker writes "the world shrinks," he is referring to the isolation typical of abusive relationships. He's been cut off from everyone, and now that it's over, it's really hard to suddenly try and reconnect with them again. I imagine perhaps her disposition pushed others away from him, and now he's stuck cleaning up the mess (someone has to sweep the floor, pick up her dirty clothes, that job's not mine) she's left and he's just not up for it. Maybe he's just emotionally exhausted and can't do it yet. I don't know. But the first chunk gives off the imagery of someone who's warded away their whole safety net of human beings. The phrasing "I don't blame them for their curtain calls / Because I pulled the rope / I want to call them back out for applause" is tricky. It's like those around him have assumed it's over (they're demanding the "curtain call," something usually done at the end of a performance) even though he isn't ready to move on himself. He can't be mad at them for feeling that way, since he's been the one to inform them that things are "over" on a surface level, (he's "pulled the rope") but emotionally he's still vulnerable and things feel unfinished.

"So now I'm sleeping next to mousetraps / In a bed of all our clothes / While I hope that she won't come home" hits on multiple levels. On the first, it hits on caregiver fatigue; this speaker has spent so much time and emotional/physical energy caring for her, and now that she's gone... of course he's devastated and wishes it weren't so, but maybe a part of him is glad for the opportunity to finally move on and live for himself again. From the context of an emotionally abusive relationship, the lyrics became that much worse; although it's over, and she was abusive, he's alone now and part of him can't believe it and expects her to come sauntering back in -- and he's hoping she won't, while sleeping among her clothes because a twisted part of him still misses her. There is a lot of conflict wrapped up in this section and it works on multiple levels, but the image it produces is palpable: the speaker has pushed everyone out in favor of an abusive relationship that just imploded and left him with nothing, and now he's left to pick up the pieces alone, and he's terrified to cross the bridges that he's burned (as evidenced by the final lines of this second section).

This idea is further evidenced by vivid segments like "when your helicopter came and tried to lift me out / I put its rope around my neck / And after that you didn't bother with the airlift or the rescue / You knew just what to expect." Basically the idea that others DID try to help the speaker get out of this abusive relationship, but he refused their help in traumatic ways that pushed others out.

I like the ending of this song, because it's very hopeful unlike the rest of the album that leaves one with a sense of hopelessness and desolation at times. When the speaker says "I want to bust down the door / If you're willing to forgive / I've got the keys, I'm letting people in" it's apparent that he's gotten past his fear of letting others in and he's decided that, if they're willing to forgive him, he'll rejoin their lives. But what leads to that revelation? I believe it's where the speaker writes "with the door closed, shades drawn / we're dead enough / they don't open from outside." The opening stanzas of the speaker sleeping among the deceased patient's clothing (or in earlier songs of him in her bed shortly after death, a bed "clearly intended for you") have culminated in this revelation: that if the speaker cannot move on, then it is as though he died with her. In keeping with the abusive relationship allegory, the idea is similar; if one cannot move beyond the trauma and open up to others again, then their abusive partner has effectively finished them permanently. Unwilling to let himself become among the finished, he does what was hinted at initially; he "call[s] them back out for applause" and invites others into his life once more, "if [they're] willing to forgive."

The final segments feel like a message to other victims of abuse listening in. "Don't speak with someone's tooth" was confusing to me. Whenever I looked it up, I only found references to this song. I think "speaking with someone's tooth" means speaking through someone else's perspective. Earlier in the song, it's written "And someone has to speak with their teeth behind their tongue / To never let that right be denied," and they're giving the impression that speech is passed past the teeth and over the tongue, so if you're speaking with someone else's tooth then you're effectively letting them form your thoughts. In other words, one shouldn't let others dictate how they feel about a situation. The musical crescendo after this is stated hints at this as well; it's like an awakening has happened, and only when the speaker stops speaking "with someone's tooth" is he free to realize his own limitations, and that the burden of his partner's well being isn't entirely his responsibility. He can move on and come to terms with the fact that he didn't deserve any of what happened to him.

This is a beautiful multi-layered song. I love it so much.