It's such a beautiful song. I think the lyrics are about an older man looking back and trying to figure out when he lost it all. "Look at the trees/Didn't stop at the top/Not for him" he thinks that back then nothing could stop him from achieving whatever he wants. "Look in his eyes for a dying flare" perhaps he's looking back and trying to figure out when he lost that sparkle in his eyes and the motivation for living. "And pretend/You see the man/Who isn't there" seems to be pretending that he still has his youth or innocence or whatever it is that he's lost along the way. Maybe his upward progress led him to somewhere that ended with him doing things he wished he hadn't. Now he's regretful and can't figure out where it all went wrong so he tells himself that it never did.
It's such a beautiful song. I think the lyrics are about an older man looking back and trying to figure out when he lost it all. "Look at the trees/Didn't stop at the top/Not for him" he thinks that back then nothing could stop him from achieving whatever he wants. "Look in his eyes for a dying flare" perhaps he's looking back and trying to figure out when he lost that sparkle in his eyes and the motivation for living. "And pretend/You see the man/Who isn't there" seems to be pretending that he still has his youth or innocence or whatever it is that he's lost along the way. Maybe his upward progress led him to somewhere that ended with him doing things he wished he hadn't. Now he's regretful and can't figure out where it all went wrong so he tells himself that it never did.