Terminal

Man, I could swear I heard this on an EP a few years back. No idea what the lyrics are saying though.

These lyrics throw me for a loop. Half of it seems to be describing escape or something along those lines but the other half I'm not sure of, plus the music throws you off. For it brings to mind an airplane terminal (like the title suggests) and it feels dreamy. I didn't like this one too much before but it's growing.

Okay, so yeah. Agreed; this is a bit cryptic, but I'll take a shot at it anyway:

It sounds to me like a love song, but in this case he is in love with two women who he cannot choose between, and instead flies to California to visit the one he presumably does not live with (we'll call her his mistress). The cave would represent his inwardness and secrecy, while the "beautiful day" therein that he wakes to is intended to show his excitement at visiting his mistress, while at the same time pointing out the separation, by his deception, from the woman with whom he lives (we'll call her his wife), like the separation of daylight from the darkness of a cave, even as he watches her incandescent wave goodbye at the terminal ("watch colors wave"). "Before the phone starts ringin' / it's you" is using "you" in the sense of both women, the wife he is waking up next to (who is there before the phone rings) and the mistress who is calling him (who he knows is calling before the phone ever rings). He promises his wife that he'll be back "before the daylight savings is through" and promises his mistress that he will be gone by the same time.

Okay, stanza two... The boy represents the narrator's drive for something that the mistress cannot give him, a drive that when bored (sexually, I assume from the "knife" symbol) calls him to leave, as though waiting for him threateningly on the front porch. At the same time though, the "since dawn... 'til dawn" lines imply that the boy, or mind of the narrator, is also drawn to spend all night with her. The old man represents his feelings toward his wife, and a drive that compels him to boredom from which he cannot escape ("blocking the door"), save once a year (the "dawn" in this line being the time once a year he gets to fly to california).

The third stanza involves his actions toward his wife. He only fights with her in situations that would cause her distress and render her willing neither to fight him ("when [she's] terrified") nor to air out their dirty laundry ("when [they] get outside"). The last two lines of this stanza however show his softer side and some of their past. Apparently they used to be happy, and he wants that happiness back, effectually "ruling out the alternative" woman. The use of "used to DID" helps stress the idea that that happiness is in the past.

The fourth stanza stresses the narrator's current state of cheating ("going, going, going"), his want to stop cheating ("feet don't make me leave again"), and his want to keep cheating ("feet don't fail me"). "Feet don't fail me" could also be interpreted to mean that he feels that his feet don't, and may never, fail him in the pursuit of running. The stress on feet implies this sense of running away (from his situation) as well as a sense of running toward something that he wants (true, fulfilled love). Furthermore it implies that he is blaming his feet for running, rather than himself, and uses it as a half-believed excuse.

Moore's best lines in the song, in my opinion, lie in the fifth stanza, where he uses a device so simple that it takes on a whole new significance. This would be his use (and eventually lack thereof) of the adverbs "eventually," "physically," and "completely." The first two of these are used grammatically correctly in the lines, giving a sense of absoluteness, particularly with such a definite term as "physically." "Eventually" he WILL be in California, he WILL "physically" be there, but in leaving off the 'ly' in "completely," therefore turning it into an adjective, and preceding it with the words "MAYBE I can," shows that he truly does not know if he will ever be able to love either woman COMPLETELY.

Thank you Kevin Moore, for your incredible lyricism and musical prowess.