Lake Song

Wrong lyrics again.

Here are the correct lyrics :

Down by the lake We were over-turning pebbles And upending all the animals alight

And I took a drag From your cigarette and pinched it 'tween my finger and my thumb Till it had died

And the sun burned low On the radio

Say that you will Say you will or will you won't or you whatever You prevaricate your whole life, don't you?

And this much I can say I would have waited 'till the oceans fell away and all the sunken cities would Reveal themselves to you

But you won't will you? Because you never do

And the sun burned through Sweet as honeydew

And I Seventeen and terminally fey Well I wrote it down and threw it all away Never gave a thought to what I'd paid

And you All sibylline, reclining in your pew You tattered me you tethered me to you The things you would, and the things you wouldn't do To tell the truth I never had a clue

Now we arise To curse these young suburban villains And their ill-begotten children from the lawn

Come to me now And on this station wagon window set the ghosts of your two footprints that they might Haunt me when you're gone

And when the light broke dawn You were forever gone

But I remember you: You were full... You were full and sweet as honeydew

And I Seventeen and terminally fey Well I wrote it down and threw it all away And never gave a through to what I'd paid

And you All sibylline, reclining in your pew You tattered me you tethered me to you The things you would, and the things you wouldn't do You notice now I never had a clue

Never had a clue

You were full and sweet as honeydew

You were full and sweet as honeydew

To me the song is about looking back at a time/experience/friendship/love in your life and having a different appreciation for it. "I wrote it down and threw it all away/And never gave a thought to what I'd paid"

My favorite part about the lyrics are that it's clear Colin had an experience of his own in mind, but left it open for the listener to relate it to their own.

My favorite from the new album. It elicits such a sense of yearning in me. Love it.

Sometimes Decemberists throw a song at you that you need to just fall into and let consume you. This song sat at the edges of my periphery since I first heard the album, and I needed one of those moments sitting out on a law by my own lake to really let it soak in. Then the interpretation that I embraced tethered to me, tattered me.

In simple terms, this is unknown or unreturned love coming at that time when we still are learning what love really is. The singer (guessing this is a Colin telling his own story here) is regarding a story from his youth. It was a day, a moment, a period of magic. The experiences are real and specific - from the pinch of a cigarette to the sun on the radio. There were happy games like overturning pebbles, playful jokes of ill begotten children on the lawn.They were happy, they were enjoying this lake. Yet he harbored something more.

Whatever he had to wait for, he was ready to wait for her ... until the oceans fell away. He wanted those footprints to be his ghost. The more he tries to define his love, the quicker he was to dismiss it. He wrote it down, threw it all away. "You won't will you, because you never do," judges her reaction before he ever takes action. He wants her to do more - wants her to say things that would lead him to know what is what she will do. He was naive, terminally fae. As confident she seemed to be was as unconfident he was in her.

Yet where my mind churns is what she was - who she was. Did she love him in return, did she just keep him around, did she just want to stay friends. Why didn't she that she will, or will she or won't. What were the things she would do, what she wouldn't do. In the end, he never had a clue. But neither did we.

So in part the beauty of this song is that it is like the singer that addresses the audience. It tatters me. It tethers me to it. It could be a much simpler song, a much simpler story - but to tell the truth I would never have a clue.

This is a beautiful song. But an embarrassing one. Essentially, Colin had a teenage crush who put him in the friendzone. Fine, we've all been there. But he's still holding a candle for her at age 40! Jeez, buddy, let it go - you're a rock star now!

I think this song and Make You Better are about the same gal. See My comments for that song.

In 2022, this is my new favorite song. I didn’t pay enough attention to Decembrists in the last decade, when it came out. And isn’t that what the song is about, largely? Paying attention to things in hindsight? There is a deep yearning and regret for something that was great, and perhaps unappreciated as such, at the time, at least be her. But it was obviously formative for Colin, and replays now as a deep regret and yearning about how it might have gone differently if she had surprised him by staying. There is something very painful here, about how none of us fully appreciate something until after we leave it behind. This was amplified by a power differential, due to the fact that she didn’t care as much as him. she didn’t seem to care about the relationship as much as him. He now seems to understand the insurmountable nature of that power dynamic, and the fact that he was clueless. This is the universal story of one-sided love.