In the Dark Lyrics

Lyric discussion by whimsical_oracle 

Cover art for In the Dark lyrics by Josh Ritter

This song seems to me to be a lament about the 9/11 attack... the obvious allusions "wreck of buildings"; "flames" and "burning", "falls from tremendous heights. The "ghosts of angels" are the tragic victims who haunt our memories.

"We started looking for you in the darker caves" - meaning the hunt for the evil OBL hiding in his cave. We had a lot of love / We thought we light the way" - meaning the overwhelming sympathy and support from the world in the aftermath of the attack.

"Other fires were burning too... Battlefields" reference the war in Iraq. "The dying Light Brigade" is the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, where brave soldiers were sent to their unnecessary deaths by a foolish commander - a reference criticizing the disastrous Iraq war.

"Don't you leave us in the dark" is a plea that things will turn out alright in the end, that there is a light of hope to emerge from the dark. Or it could be a plea for the troops to come home - that we must not leave them in the dark i.e. in death.

That's my 2 cents :)

this is beautiful. i had always thought of it as a love song between two people not a love song for the nation. excellent.

Totally. I agree. In fact, my very first impression was that the song was written from the lost followers of Bin Laden:

We started looking for you In the darker caves We had a lot of love We thought would light the way

Then: We thought you were a saint But the halo was an eye It's hard to see how there could be So much dark inside the light

As if the followers - those lost and hurt men and women who desperately wanted to believe in something, desperately lost in love and fear, were led astray. Bin...