Parentheses

I think that this song is about telling someone that you don't want to be romantically involved with them anymore along with saying that they didn't deserve you on the first place. The first talks about hurting your lover, but not feeling any regret "I don't owe you anything." The second part is about the speaker leaving there lover and making it obvious. He is leaving and telling her to shut her knees, because he no longer wants to have sex with her. The shape of her open legs, with her knees bent, looks like a parenthesis. He is also saying that he wants to close the parenthesis symbolically. Their whole relationship was just a side note, something in parenthesis that was not important to the whole sentence or paragraph. Now he is leaving and ending it, closing the parenthesis. The part about the phantom memory is because he is cutting the girl out of his life. He is amputating their relationship, but he won't have phantom memories of her, in other words, regrets. He is leaving and won't think of her again.

I think that this song is about telling someone that you don't want to be romantically involved with them anymore along with saying that they didn't deserve you on the first place. The first talks about hurting your lover, but not feeling any regret "I don't owe you anything." The second part is about the speaker leaving there lover and making it obvious. He is leaving and telling her to shut her knees, because he no longer wants to have sex with her. The shape of her open legs, with her knees bent, looks like a parenthesis. He is also saying that he wants to close the parenthesis symbolically. Their whole relationship was just a side note, something in parenthesis that was not important to the whole sentence or paragraph. Now he is leaving and ending it, closing the parenthesis. The part about the phantom memory is because he is cutting the girl out of his life. He is amputating their relationship, but he won't have phantom memories of her, in other words, regrets. He is leaving and won't think of her again.

"I think we knew right away that this had to be the first song on the record. It practically wrote itself. It’s a pop song about hollow sex." -http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4142670-the-antlers-track-by-track-guide-to-their-new-album-burst-apart

Vidal's quote was referring to "I Don't Want Love", ha ha. Also, the title is "Parentheses". I like this song very much though, The Antlers have masterfully created an extremely eerie atmosphere here.

Oh dear, I probably linked seeing sex in radishking's post with seeing sex in the "I Don't Want Love" explanation, or listening to it at the same time. My bad!

Correction, just incase the link gets taken down in future. I mean...it's always good for people to post their own interpretations of the song but it's also nice to see the official one too to compare with. (albeit, these aren't too detailed..)

"This song was built from a loop we captured from Michael playing drums for a long time, and a collection of seemingly non-musical sounds, woven together to make a spooky, downbeat electronic song. It’s a rejection of being anyone’s emotional crutch (a la Hospice), by way of another song about sex."

Again though it does mention sex...haha

The first song on this album mentioned bruising and being pushed around, and sex. The second mentioned shrieking at the narrator, and more sex.

Given that the narrator now says his arm is in a sling (and maybe I'm taking it literally) I wonder if the first few tracks go into the beginning and end of an abusive relationship?

Plainly put, A lot of the time songwriters put a deeper and more personal/intimate meaing into the title of their songs by using an alnate name in parentheses. So, if you want me to stop writing songs about you stop behaving in a way that warrants them.