Lanterns Lit

With a lot of Son Lux songs, I see religious parallels. This one is to the parable of the Bridegroom coming and the running out of oil in people's lamps. The narrator is keeping their lantern lit for the coming of Christ, repeating that they will remain faithful multiple times. But curiously in the end he says you just could not last for me, makes it a more sorrowful song despite its beauty. It leaves you wondering whether he has actually lost faith or is just facing hardships.

I can only guess about author Ryan Lott's intentions when he wrote and composed this song, but for me it works unmistakeably as a bereavement song, specifically for bereavement over a spouse or long-term life partner.

In fact, I happened to listen to it for the first time while my late wife was in the last days of a terminal disease, and listened again regularly ever since her passing.

The song uncannily, wonderfully, and accurately matches my vivid experiences while overcoming bereavement, verse by verse. It's as if I myself had written it:

Memory rushes in Then washes you away I am losing you to the sea

As you're gone, all that remains from you is your memories. But long-term memory has the property that every time you summon an old memory, you rewrite it. It's a fact that our memories of events past are not the memories of the event itself, but memories of the last time you reminisced the event. Therefore, every time a wave of memory brings you, it washes you away. So I lose you a bit, as you become less and less of the real, factual "you" and more of my invention. This is sad, but it is also regrettably beneficial, since my life must go on and I must learn to let go of your constant presence.

I'll break from the weight of my mind But your ghost I will gladly bear

In order to survive my period of grief I will have no choice but to put a stop to the circular, self-destructive ruminating on the painful thoughts of your loss, that weight me down and prevent me from going on ("I'll break from the weight of my mind"), but this does not at all mean I will forget you. Because I will do treasure my best memories of who you were —especially the good ones— within me, and will share them with others, and pay testimony to who you were, thus offering myself as a vessel or receptacle for your spirit ("your ghost I will gladly bear").

And with all your grief in my arms I will labor by singing light

I vow to overcome my bereavement and keep on being a working, productive, even happy being ("I will labor by singing light"), but this will be despite wearing the indelible mark of my grieving on me, irreversibly, even with some sort of sad pride, like a tattoo ("with all your grief in my arms")

I'll keep my lanterns lit (×8)

Sometime my bereavement period will end and I will no longer be incapacitated by grief, but I will never, never fail to be faithful to you and your legacy, and as long as I live, I will bear witness to you and the many fruits of your life.

If you had a single flaw You just could not last forever, could you? You just could not last for me

This last verse, which works as an intimate epilog, quite explains itself. It's a wonderful mixture of love and reproach: you were perfect in all ways except in one: you failed me by depriving me of your presence. So a bittersweet part of my grief is that, even though you didn't become ill and die on purpose, I'm, in some childish, irrational way, a tiny bit mad at you for leaving me.

I do not know what this song means for the writer but for me when I hear this I can't help but think of the loss of a precious one. It could be due to death or just life pulling them away. They were so dear to them and now they're gone. The thought of them brings on waves of sorrow and they struggle to be happy. Keeping their lanterns lit makes me think they are hoping the lost one will find their way back to them... but they're gone.