First off, Sparklehorse is one of those bands that I suspect don't offer lyrics open to holistic analysis (I realize I should be speaking in the singular - it's basically just Mark Linkous - but whatever).
But essentially, this song seems quite easy to get. It's about dying and reincarnation. The 'I will return' sections are about both body and memories (the bear's tooth) rising again. There's also the dichotomy between suffering and gentleness - "black fumes of skin" that, we are told, "so gently bled." The blood suckers and cat seem both external influences that are draining the life from him - these could be seen as the constant pressures of life, constant because they are even present beneath his bed (usually seen as a private place of relative safety) and sleeping on his chest, of which the narrator is very aware. The monkeys leaving pennies in his eyes is about the old tradition of putting coins in dead people's eyes - this is based on the idea that the dead need to pay the boatman a fee to cross (I think) the river Styx into the afterlife.
I'm not quite so sure about the meaning of a few things. Why did the narrator himself bury what are presumably his own 'nails and strings and hair'? Also, what is the meaning of the part of holding his hand into the fire and the wiring being revealed? Is he just a robot, a part of a much larger machine (and is that possibly why he can be so confident that he will rise again)? Any thoughts and ideas much welcomed!
First off, Sparklehorse is one of those bands that I suspect don't offer lyrics open to holistic analysis (I realize I should be speaking in the singular - it's basically just Mark Linkous - but whatever).
But essentially, this song seems quite easy to get. It's about dying and reincarnation. The 'I will return' sections are about both body and memories (the bear's tooth) rising again. There's also the dichotomy between suffering and gentleness - "black fumes of skin" that, we are told, "so gently bled." The blood suckers and cat seem both external influences that are draining the life from him - these could be seen as the constant pressures of life, constant because they are even present beneath his bed (usually seen as a private place of relative safety) and sleeping on his chest, of which the narrator is very aware. The monkeys leaving pennies in his eyes is about the old tradition of putting coins in dead people's eyes - this is based on the idea that the dead need to pay the boatman a fee to cross (I think) the river Styx into the afterlife.
I'm not quite so sure about the meaning of a few things. Why did the narrator himself bury what are presumably his own 'nails and strings and hair'? Also, what is the meaning of the part of holding his hand into the fire and the wiring being revealed? Is he just a robot, a part of a much larger machine (and is that possibly why he can be so confident that he will rise again)? Any thoughts and ideas much welcomed!