Slow Glass

First days of Spring is a masterpiece! The first few times I listened to it, I was mesmerized. The whole flow from the recently broken heart to the emotional processing of the relationship, that finally comes to terms with the last 3 songs. "Slow Glass" is about a a new perspective. Suddenly the writer sees the relationship with different eyes. He views his former self as a blind man, walking in an obscure reality, that is managed and manipulated by the negative dynamic between him and his special lady friend. He wakes up to find a different self, the veil has been lifted and his view is clear now. How many of us have had this same experience. Thinking that reality is one thing, only to find at a later point in life that we were totally wrong in interpreting it.

This song went from awesome to seriously awesome when I found out what slow glass actually is (or at least, would be, since apparently it only exists in sci-fi).

From http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16922797.300-slow-glass.html

"You need a sheet of "material" which doesn't actually stop light but slows it down to travelling only in a few centimetres a year. Now imagine placing a plate of the material two centimetres thick out in the mountains for, say, two years and then bringing it back for your city window. Over the next two years, the mountain view would slowly emerge from the other side."

Presumably slow glass would be initially opaque at first and then gradually you'd start to be able to see whatever was on the other side. So although the singer saw nothing wrong with his relationship at first, wanted it back, thought he'd be better off with her, it was always an inevitability that with time he would start to see what was actually there, and realise he could be happier without her, as certainly as the laws of physics (or at least fictional physics). He just needed time.

This song is so about Laura.

I love them both, though...even if they now hate each other.

Bit of a reference to Blackberry Stone, where Laura Marling responds to one of Noah and the Whales earlier songs, Hold My Hand as its Lowered. She changes the words to Hold My Hand to say that while she will be sad that she won't hold his hand, 'the world does what it does'- The world referring to they NatW lyric "Well, I fell in love with the world in you".. Kind of like saying, you fell in love with who I am, so you should respect my right to act as I do- if that be breaking up with you for the following reasons..

She sings: And you never did learn to let the little things go And you never did learn to let me be And you never did learn to let little people grow And you never did learn how to see

So its kind of hard not to see-

Well I heard you been singing Well I was, what I am Well I never tried to change you, honey I'm your biggest fan and I loved you back then but I don't recognize you now

As a bit of a reference. The 'I don't recognise you now' is interesting as Charlie Fink had produced her debut album, then they broke up and she released Blackberry stone as a B side (only for it to get onto the next album). I Speak is so different to Alas that I suppose you could see as it as her moving away from Fink's style and closer to her own (or Mumford's) style?

Thanks to all these comments I finally see where this song fits into the album. I always felt it was kind of a last minute add on but now it fits perfectly, thank you!