Done

Yeah, you can read "tell her I'm done" as the end of a relationship. Or it could be something more interesting than that...

The language in this song is so interesting. It has a grandeur - "lair," "wind and sand", blood and silver, and so on. It all makes me think of a gangster movie.

So I'm reading it as a guy who stole from the mob (silver in hand), a hit man was sent to kill him in his "lair," but he killed the hit man (blood on my lips.) But he knows he's never going to be safe, so he leaves home to wander. And can't even take the risk of telling his girl that he's gone, or they'll come after her. He's "done" - either he knows he's already dead, or he just knows the life he's led up to this point is over.

My reading of this is that it's a man coming out of isolation. A madman, prophet, or songwriter who had been living as a hermit is stumbling out of his desert cave. His lips are dry and chapped, it's so hot. I don't know what silver is - maybe the thing he was trying to make, write, or figure out while in isolation. Alan is self-deprecating, so if it's a song he had difficulty writing silver would be more fitting than gold.

"tell her I'm done" isn't about ending a relationship or being fed up. He's telling her that he's competed his task, his period of isolation. He's ready to join the world again and wants to find his love again.

All I can imagine is a guy walking out of his "lair" after his girlfriend (or whoever) stabbed him in the back, literally or metaphorically.

"With blood on my lips, and silver in my hand," he has survived the blow, coughing up blood, and pulled the dagger out.

It's sad but also triumphant. Leaving behind all the bullshit in the lair and walking out into the sun.