End Of A Spark

Corrections according to the lyrics sheet:

"MARK the end of an age" "WE should always pretend"

I feel like this song is about the end of that spark you have in your eye as a kid. But in the song, he's saying that as long as we know that it's still there, we can access it and will always remember it.

I love the way Dave sings the entire bridge lyrics from "I am a gear" through "a piece of the part". Lovely.

i think christa has it right... although i also wonder if the "spark" could mean life itself-

we think of our own life as a comparatively long time, measured in many decades. but even a very long life, measured in terms of the life of the earth or the universe or "eternity," is really a tiny spark- here and gone in an incredibly short instant.

so i wonder if that is part of the image in the song as well- that whatever period of our lives we look at- innocent childhood, or the whole thing- it is a preciously short flash, or spark, and then its gone.

...or, in the words of the Ancients:

"such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be there."

Surely it's "We FED its teeth with superglue...." and "as long as my teeth they CHURN"? Never heard of teeth 'turning'....

This song reminds me of childhood romance maybe high school that left a strong impression.

"Spend all our Sundays in a row, ten feet from Chinatown, like it's dead but we know, cause when he put you to bed , your great-grandfather always said, wasting is an art , like the nights we spent in backs of cars" referring to how consumed they were with each other that nothing else mattered as if the world stopped. Back of the car referring to a romantic relationship.

A piece of the part, The end of a spark referring to how it stills a fond memory even though it will never come again. Maybe even how it set the bar for relationships to come.