This song is about the narrator sitting with someone who is dying of some slow, whithering disease like cancer or AIDS.
The "angles" are the angles of the dying person's face due to weightloss caused by the disease. The angles and the pallor makes the person look like angelic.
There's also the nod to the angel of death.
The "low moon" could mean any of several things. It could be the pale bald head showing through the hair of a chemo patient. It could be the figurative setting of the moon as the very end of a day (night) and the darkness that comes afterward. Either way, the low moon is clearly meant as a metaphor because the two lines later, it's clearly still daytime.
All the other elements in the verses (purr of pigeon, ticking, crossword, bedbug, swallow and calm) all describe the waiting in silence by the bedside of the dying person, made an invalid by the disease at its late stages. They also bring out the quiet anxiety of sitting and waiting for death.
The "hand to lay on the open palm" describes the tenderness of the narrator as he/she waits and comforts the dying person. The use of "darling" also denotes that tenderness.
Drowning describes the feeling of of withering away: of the dying person, of their relationship, of the narrators life as he/she waits. Drowning also describes the heaviness of the mood as everything seems to pull downward.
Although I don't necessarily agree with you, I do believe that this song could be interpreted that way. I can see a man or woman looking over an elderly person who is slowly dying from something and thinking that its not just that person, but everyone and everything. Life is a countdown to an end. But there are those little moments in life that make it shine.
Although I don't necessarily agree with you, I do believe that this song could be interpreted that way. I can see a man or woman looking over an elderly person who is slowly dying from something and thinking that its not just that person, but everyone and everything. Life is a countdown to an end. But there are those little moments in life that make it shine.
I think you guys are all wrong. (Sorry.)
This song is about the narrator sitting with someone who is dying of some slow, whithering disease like cancer or AIDS.
The "angles" are the angles of the dying person's face due to weightloss caused by the disease. The angles and the pallor makes the person look like angelic.
There's also the nod to the angel of death.
The "low moon" could mean any of several things. It could be the pale bald head showing through the hair of a chemo patient. It could be the figurative setting of the moon as the very end of a day (night) and the darkness that comes afterward. Either way, the low moon is clearly meant as a metaphor because the two lines later, it's clearly still daytime.
All the other elements in the verses (purr of pigeon, ticking, crossword, bedbug, swallow and calm) all describe the waiting in silence by the bedside of the dying person, made an invalid by the disease at its late stages. They also bring out the quiet anxiety of sitting and waiting for death.
The "hand to lay on the open palm" describes the tenderness of the narrator as he/she waits and comforts the dying person. The use of "darling" also denotes that tenderness.
Drowning describes the feeling of of withering away: of the dying person, of their relationship, of the narrators life as he/she waits. Drowning also describes the heaviness of the mood as everything seems to pull downward.
Although I don't necessarily agree with you, I do believe that this song could be interpreted that way. I can see a man or woman looking over an elderly person who is slowly dying from something and thinking that its not just that person, but everyone and everything. Life is a countdown to an end. But there are those little moments in life that make it shine.
Although I don't necessarily agree with you, I do believe that this song could be interpreted that way. I can see a man or woman looking over an elderly person who is slowly dying from something and thinking that its not just that person, but everyone and everything. Life is a countdown to an end. But there are those little moments in life that make it shine.