Disappearing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-IjEiqDizs&t=1365s

I would really recommend seeing this version. Disappearing starts at 25:21 and gets followed by Lost In The Dream. Amazing performance.

The economy of words and beat the mimics a weary march, would not let me let this song go. I was left grasping a straws, but here goes.

The Title: Disappearing, set the tone, tinting it with an expectation of loss, sadness, and tragedy. But there was too little verbiage for me to find a foundation to even begin. In cases like this I turn to researching the poet. That's when I came upon this:

Hannah EllisPetersen @HannahEP · Sep 23, 2014 This is a pretty brilliant @pitchfork interview with Adam Granofsky The War on Drugs: Inside Man How Adam Granduciel beat back crippling anxiety and isolation to come up with one of the year's most inclusive—and best—rock records. By David Bevan. pitchfork.com"

If you have never suffered from crippling anxiety, count your blessings.

I believe this song is in response to a bad bout with anxiety. Based on this assumptions my thoughts about the song are as follows:

First I think each line is a key sentence from more in-depth paragraphs.

The person checking in with him came "All this way to connect" When the author does good to make it "All the way to the corner everyday" "You were there for me... But will you wait for the one that disappears."

Few understand what the clinically anxious are going through. If you've seen depictions of a dog so abused and scared that it gives up on fight or flight and just freezes with it's head in a corner even after the threat is passed. The clinically anxious, like the abused dog, can't reason it's way out of the corners. The fear is crippling because they loose the ability to do some of the most basic and necessary things for living.

When he says "But will you wait for the one that disappears?" He's recognizing that this person will soon give up on him too, eventually coming to the false conclusion that "He could do better if he wanted to."

Disappearing (under this scenario) is the appropriate title. The narrator is disappearing in every way possible; mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, even financially. He is not seen and has given up hope of being seen.

Thus the lyrics end a quarter way through the song. The beat wearily marches on like the passing of time. Guitars and harmonica effects wail in lament as the music slowly disappears down the road. Not really ending as much reaching the end of he horizon and fading into oblivion.

This is a horrible hellish way to exist. I hope my interpretation is wrong!