The song is about the various ways that people interact with the inherent beauty in the world. There are actually four narrative voices in this song. One is the girl. Hers is the voice of innocence and youth: seeing the beauty of the world for the first time and overwhelmed by it's immensity but unable to comprehend it's meaning or put it in context. The next is the man in the car: he represents the people who bludgeon and stomp through life without seeing the beauty around them. He casually destroys the beauty around him because he is too self centered and insensate. The third voice is the collector, who's reaction to beauty is to try and control it, capture it and make it static, thus preserving it but robbing it of it's essential element, except in his own memory. The final voice is the father's who's reaction to the beauty of the world is entirely centered around guiding and mentoring his daughter's experience of that beauty. He finds no intrinsic joy in the beauty of the world for himself, but only finds joy anymore in the vicarious experience.
The song is about the various ways that people interact with the inherent beauty in the world. There are actually four narrative voices in this song. One is the girl. Hers is the voice of innocence and youth: seeing the beauty of the world for the first time and overwhelmed by it's immensity but unable to comprehend it's meaning or put it in context. The next is the man in the car: he represents the people who bludgeon and stomp through life without seeing the beauty around them. He casually destroys the beauty around him because he is too self centered and insensate. The third voice is the collector, who's reaction to beauty is to try and control it, capture it and make it static, thus preserving it but robbing it of it's essential element, except in his own memory. The final voice is the father's who's reaction to the beauty of the world is entirely centered around guiding and mentoring his daughter's experience of that beauty. He finds no intrinsic joy in the beauty of the world for himself, but only finds joy anymore in the vicarious experience.