What I hear in this one is someone emerging from depression at the end of a significant romantic relationship, with nature having emerged as the catalyst to whatever healing is going on. But not necessarily in a kind way . . .
The death of something is alluded to throughout with the birds mentioned: magpies and vultures notoriously eat roadkill/carrion, whip-poor-wills, by popular legend, sing when a soul leaves someone's body, etc. "An airtight mission / A Cousteau exhibition to find a diamond at the bottom of the drain" seems to suggest the kind of constant & prolonged mental gymnastics that people often engage in following the end of a marriage/partnership, if one assumes that the "diamond" is meant to suggest A) the symbol of romantic commitment, and B) that it's "down the drain," literally.
The magpie's admonition to wake up to the beauty of the present indicates that the person being addressed is absorbed in the past. The thieving mockingbird sings a death song and the cacophony of car alarms "for [the depressed individual] special" as signifiers of chaos and loss.
But it's the end of the song that I find most interesting - the idea that "morning's teeth are lit," and that they "are waiting," that is. The idea of the coming day having teeth is not exactly reassuring, after all, yet the thrust of the song seems to be a kind of carpe diem call to release one's self from navel-gazing.
So, overall what I'm getting out of "MttM" is more of the terrible beauty of nature that Neko seems to focus on so often, and in this case, it serves as a reminder that actual death is coming, so stop wasting days wishing to revive a romance that is gone.
What I hear in this one is someone emerging from depression at the end of a significant romantic relationship, with nature having emerged as the catalyst to whatever healing is going on. But not necessarily in a kind way . . .
The death of something is alluded to throughout with the birds mentioned: magpies and vultures notoriously eat roadkill/carrion, whip-poor-wills, by popular legend, sing when a soul leaves someone's body, etc. "An airtight mission / A Cousteau exhibition to find a diamond at the bottom of the drain" seems to suggest the kind of constant & prolonged mental gymnastics that people often engage in following the end of a marriage/partnership, if one assumes that the "diamond" is meant to suggest A) the symbol of romantic commitment, and B) that it's "down the drain," literally.
The magpie's admonition to wake up to the beauty of the present indicates that the person being addressed is absorbed in the past. The thieving mockingbird sings a death song and the cacophony of car alarms "for [the depressed individual] special" as signifiers of chaos and loss.
But it's the end of the song that I find most interesting - the idea that "morning's teeth are lit," and that they "are waiting," that is. The idea of the coming day having teeth is not exactly reassuring, after all, yet the thrust of the song seems to be a kind of carpe diem call to release one's self from navel-gazing.
So, overall what I'm getting out of "MttM" is more of the terrible beauty of nature that Neko seems to focus on so often, and in this case, it serves as a reminder that actual death is coming, so stop wasting days wishing to revive a romance that is gone.