I think you guys are on the right track and figured I'd add a little. It's kinda of a mid-life crisis, not in the realization that your going to die, but that life was really want you dreamed it would be like. You get an apartment or buy a house, have a corporate job that leaves you unfulfilled, kids, family, bills, repairs,...the list goes on and on. This guy, like millions of others had responsibilities that take priority over his dreams or any chance to dream. "He was okay" - means that its not like he's starving or in perpetual pain, but still knows that his life should have been better. "Lost on a road he knew by heart" is like taking the same route to work everyday, but then one day remebering to look up and away, to step outside the routine (all that he is now) and appreciate the world, to think again, to dream again.
The song then brings him back to understanding his responsibilities, he'll go back to work tomorrow, go through the same rituals, the same boring job. he "says goodbye to himself" - just means that he'll see that side (the hopeful side, the dreamer side) again, sometime in the future when he for some reason gets "moved by sleight of hand".
I think you guys are on the right track and figured I'd add a little. It's kinda of a mid-life crisis, not in the realization that your going to die, but that life was really want you dreamed it would be like. You get an apartment or buy a house, have a corporate job that leaves you unfulfilled, kids, family, bills, repairs,...the list goes on and on. This guy, like millions of others had responsibilities that take priority over his dreams or any chance to dream. "He was okay" - means that its not like he's starving or in perpetual pain, but still knows that his life should have been better. "Lost on a road he knew by heart" is like taking the same route to work everyday, but then one day remebering to look up and away, to step outside the routine (all that he is now) and appreciate the world, to think again, to dream again.
The song then brings him back to understanding his responsibilities, he'll go back to work tomorrow, go through the same rituals, the same boring job. he "says goodbye to himself" - just means that he'll see that side (the hopeful side, the dreamer side) again, sometime in the future when he for some reason gets "moved by sleight of hand".