Water and Air

I think the beginning is right after some sort of drowning accident. She's being dragged out of the river, she describes the man who helped her as nice... but her lover's been taken away. The rest of the song is more recent events, events that cause her to become more more deeply depressed and manic.

I think the last stanza, the parallelism is referring to her own desire to be at the bottom of the river. Suicide.

What a stirring song. All the misery almost makes me laugh. But not quite. What exactly is going in this song?

I think this song is either a eulogy or about a break-up. I don't really think that it's about her, though, but rather some sort of story.

This is probably completely wrong, but just looking at the lyrics here, is the song possibly some sort of eulogy or tribute to jeff buckley? I don't know enough about him or the details of his death to draw much out of the lyrics, and maybe it is just assuming that any 'alternative' song from the mid/ late nineties is going to be some sort of reference.

Like i said, just a thought.

I'd go with the allusion to Jeff Buckley, but anyway it's clearly a song about loss (of love, a person perhaps). It's musically mesmeric.

I'll buy the Jeff Buckley reference. I never thought about it that way. It seems more directly about a woman who goes into a river with her lover and comes out alone. It is haunting and I love the way some of the lines sort of drift into wailing. It has a keening effect. She sounds on edge, like she's about to lose it.

This song is so haunting. Anyway, it can't be about Jeff Buckley, as he died a year after this album was released; this song was written long before his death.

i thought maybe it was about two lovers who died on the same day or something, "The same day they fell in love The same day they died in love"

and they died somehow in a river, "My lover drifted down the river Below the dark water The devil all around" like he was floating down the river?

i could be completely wrong, this song has some deep meaning it seems that maybe only she wanted to know and she made it almost like a puzzle