But I totally would not have been able to come up with this without all of you giving me ideas, so thank you!
So, someone suggested that it sounded like a continuation of Casimir Pulaski, which gave me an idea, and so I have been listening to it a lot and reading the lyrics along with it. I do think it has a lot to do with death... soooo.......
First off, most of the song is in past tense, which is a great indication of death, especially of you compare it to Casimir Pulaski.
And someone in here mentioned that owls prey on tanagers, and at one point he does say "I am the ugliest prey" which is the only present tense in the song (not exactly sure of the significance of that yet). But if he is preyed on, I thought maybe an abusive relationship? Or maybe it has something to do with the other's father? Not exactly sure where all that comes in either.
But he does say "you touched me inside of my cage/ beneath my shirt your hands embraced me," which does give the impression of an intrusion, which it may be, metaphorically, if you think about it as an abusive relationship, but someone mentioned that your heart is in your rib cage. He was in love!
At the end of the song, he says, "you said you'd wait for me down by the tannery creek/ far out by the clothesline where we used to kiss behind the sheets/ wrapped in a blanket of red/ the owl and the tanager said (2x)/ one waits until the hour is death" And that made me think about how M. Night Shyamalan used red as a symbol for the presence of ghosts in the Sixth Sense. And red is often a symbol of death, so if someone is "wrapped in a blanket of red," they are dead.. and that's why "one waits until the hour is death" because that's the time they will meet! When he dies! And THAT is why he considers death in the beginning of the song!!
So thank you to all of those whose comments gave me ideas about this. I didn't read all of the comments, so as far as I know someone already cracked it.
Another thing, too, is that the song is strangely dark. Sufjan often does sad, but not really much does he do dark, so that could be another indicator of a death/ghost type of theme.
I've got it!!
But I totally would not have been able to come up with this without all of you giving me ideas, so thank you! So, someone suggested that it sounded like a continuation of Casimir Pulaski, which gave me an idea, and so I have been listening to it a lot and reading the lyrics along with it. I do think it has a lot to do with death... soooo.......
First off, most of the song is in past tense, which is a great indication of death, especially of you compare it to Casimir Pulaski. And someone in here mentioned that owls prey on tanagers, and at one point he does say "I am the ugliest prey" which is the only present tense in the song (not exactly sure of the significance of that yet). But if he is preyed on, I thought maybe an abusive relationship? Or maybe it has something to do with the other's father? Not exactly sure where all that comes in either. But he does say "you touched me inside of my cage/ beneath my shirt your hands embraced me," which does give the impression of an intrusion, which it may be, metaphorically, if you think about it as an abusive relationship, but someone mentioned that your heart is in your rib cage. He was in love! At the end of the song, he says, "you said you'd wait for me down by the tannery creek/ far out by the clothesline where we used to kiss behind the sheets/ wrapped in a blanket of red/ the owl and the tanager said (2x)/ one waits until the hour is death" And that made me think about how M. Night Shyamalan used red as a symbol for the presence of ghosts in the Sixth Sense. And red is often a symbol of death, so if someone is "wrapped in a blanket of red," they are dead.. and that's why "one waits until the hour is death" because that's the time they will meet! When he dies! And THAT is why he considers death in the beginning of the song!!
So thank you to all of those whose comments gave me ideas about this. I didn't read all of the comments, so as far as I know someone already cracked it.
Another thing, too, is that the song is strangely dark. Sufjan often does sad, but not really much does he do dark, so that could be another indicator of a death/ghost type of theme.