Of Moons, Birds & Monsters Lyrics

Lyric discussion by sgr7447 

Cover art for Of Moons, Birds & Monsters lyrics by MGMT

I'll say what this song means to me...

This song is about getting so analytical in your own head, coming up with your own rules for how to interact with people, how to carry on just the right image, that you miss out on the things that are really important, all because you were working on your own "pale grey garden."
Also, as we're building our own gardens to show off to other people, we feel that something will come along to save us and turn all of our hard work around and reward us. This may be the ship that is being waited on. And when the ship doesn't come, you've gotta adapt, and let go of whatever you were waiting on, or you've got to take control of your life more.

you may get mad at your walls because they're the only ones that see the real you. They see everything: the loneliness, the boredom, the genuine love and concern....all the good and bad in you, and yet they have no comfort to offer, nothing to say.

Now, switching gears, I think the second verse is about a loss of identity in a coming world crisis.
"The prick of a feather could make a kingdom burn and bloodshed start." i see this as predicting that the world is approaching some kind of volatile instability, on the verge of revolution or complete chaos.

"The falling out made me a shadow in the shape of wonder." I feel this could refer to a complete existential crisis, where everything is stripped off of you into you barely exist but as a shadow. His extreme state of wonder and awe has turned him into a dumbfounded shadow. If that makes any sense.

If she's going under....I take this to mean him and the world he is in. If everything gets more chaotic, he's not always in control of the boat, but he'll ride it out.

I take the last bit about catching a monster to be some metaphor about art and the artist trying to capture beauty. The artist's struggle to capture monstrous beauty and dissect it into pieces.

And finally "communication is easy as the ocean." This is just a reminder of how easy and fluid communication can be when we let it flow in and out like the ocean.

But by far the best part of this song is the dreamy breakdown at the end of the song.

These are just random thoughts...my own connections. hope you enjoyed. I'd love some feedback.

I really agree with everything with sgr7447 said. It makes me think of all the people I know who spend so much time trying to make their myspace page make them out to be something that they aren't and trying to talk about themselves to paint a portrait of who they want to be rather than they actually are.

I also thought of girls I'd dated who would talk on and on about themselves so much and lie about guys flirting with them and asking them out to make themselves appear really attractive.

All of that stuff rather than developing...

I totally agree. To me, this song comes across very deep, and trying to address the condition of the vast majority of people. One part that spoke out to me.

To catch a monster We make a movie Set the tempo And cut and cut its brains out It will inspire on the burning pyre

My interpretation of this is that the monster represents what we fear in life, and in order to resolve our life's fears, we create things (art). "Set the tempo" is the creative process being controlled. The art ends up representing the killing of the...

A beautiful and spot-on interpretation by sgr7447. I think the following lines directly relate to one of the points they made:

"If your ship will never come, you gotta move along"

"If she's going under I can hold my breath till the sky comes back, or drown like a rat"

I believe that the interpretation of both lines is very similar. You wait for something grand to come along and pluck you from an unfavourable situation. And whether it's "your ship" or "the sky", spending precious time waiting for something to happen is a waste of...