If You Need To, Keep Time on Me

In the liner notes it says "January 20th, 2017." That was the inauguration of Donald Trump.

"How could it all fall in one day? Were we too sure of a sun?"

Basically I read it like this- Trump getting elected was a scary moment. Even Clinton would've been scary. I don't think either option would've been a nice shower of 'sunlight.' Either way, Trump got elected and it was a discouraging moment to be an American.

While this song was more than likely written from the perspective of friendship, an older married friend of mine told me his (personal) interpretation of this song: in a biblical marriage, it is very rare that either spouse will be going through the same season of doubt at exactly the same time. If the husband is doubting, he can rely on his wife's faith. If the wife is doubting, she can rely on the husband's faith. It's not meant to be a total fix, but in a moment of discouragement, that's what people do when they love each other. We lean on each other when we can't see the sunlight, ultimately to hold on to the hopeful truth of Jesus Christ. At least that's what my life looks like.

I love the lyric "wide oceans roar, a frightened fool stokes heatless/heedless fire." I read that as an appropriate commentary for all the roaring of social media during the election process. The fire was constant, and didn't seemed to help anything. Of all the noise, very little of it had any real impact (so it was "heatless") and frightened fools were constantly voicing their opinion, without giving much thought to what they were saying (heedless).

I think this is a beautiful song about lovingly supporting each other during dark days.