The Dangling Conversation

such beautiful, beautiful lyrics. about two people in a relationship who are mutually inquisitive and intelligent, and thought themselves to be a perfect match. individually they havent changed, but they have lost touch with each other, grown apart, forgotten to feel in their quest for thought. they try to fill the emptiness where there love used to flourish with the "big questions", but both realize that it isnt working. i think "borders of our lives" refers to the fact that we are only human and can only do and understand so much in our time here on earth; that we need to make the most of the now and embrace those we love we lose them. also could refer to the walls we build up between ourselves and other people.

I love how they note their place with book-markers that measure what they've lost. As they've spent their time in this suspended form of communication and the time they've wasted is measured in pages turned. Such a wondrous literal image.

i'm pretty sure these are some of the most amazing lyrics ever written, and i'm surprised that there aren't more comments.

It's a touch of genius when Paul and Art sang the phrase 'in syncopated time' syncopated-ly.

The slow disintegration of a relationship... but neither knows how to step up and say anything, but both know it's happening. Each seems to be too deeply withdrawn into his and her own worlds to reach out to the other.

When I hear this song, I always imagine the characters being sort of like Frazier Crane and Lilith from the TV show...I guess because it all seems so over-intellectual and high culture. Especially the questions in the last verse about "analysis" and "the theatre." Of course, in the TV show Frazier and Lilith did end up breaking up so I guess this is one form of art imitating another or something.

'The borders of our lives' to me, represents 'small talk'. Skimming the surface, never going into extreme detail discussing the issue of the obviously fizzling relationship.

I think that the author sadly recognizes that he and his lover can approximate their experiences of reality - and each other - in only a most imperfect way, gaining while losing something of the world's essence through the filters of language, background (Frost vs. Dickinson, male vc. female), and so forth. The more he may focus his attention on his lover, the more he distorts her, and the more he intellectually transforms her from substance to shadow. Indeed, every analysis of this condition (even this interpretation of these lyrics, even the author's interpretation of his experiences through the writing of these lyrics) creates distance between man and his environs, between one human and another. We tend to adopt the Cartesian subject-object dichotomy, becoming observers of (perhaps more than participants in) our very lives. To inaccurately invoke that old physicist, Heisenberg, the presence of the observer alters the content of that which he observes. It is remarkable that such haunting words were penned by so young a writer.

i think this song tells the story of a professional, intellectual well off and and well grounded in the arts who are slowly drifting apart...until the realization (only kiss your shadow, cannot feel your hand, you're a stranger now unto me) that what they once had and shared is gone, and is not coming back

There is a lot of meaning in "And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot feel your hand," I can only interact with your image, not the real you.