The best albums are the ones you can return to and always hear new things. "Narrow Stairs" has certainly entered that pantheon for me.
Just today, I heard the first line of this song differently: "His head was a city of paper buildings."
Before a building is actually built, it exists as a set of architectural drawings, a fully-detailed design on paper that is then rarely executed exactly as intended (or maybe not even built at all). So a whole "city of paper buildings" would be a mind burdened by many unresolved and beautiful plans, or good intentions that never come to fruition. The worst part is not only are these things burdensome, they're imaginary, because they don't physically exist. But oh, once it starts...
I think it fits in well with the "unresolved" nature of the long division metaphor (which has been thoroughly explained). Striving for the perfect solution to an unending problem is asking for toil and frustration.
The best albums are the ones you can return to and always hear new things. "Narrow Stairs" has certainly entered that pantheon for me.
Just today, I heard the first line of this song differently: "His head was a city of paper buildings."
Before a building is actually built, it exists as a set of architectural drawings, a fully-detailed design on paper that is then rarely executed exactly as intended (or maybe not even built at all). So a whole "city of paper buildings" would be a mind burdened by many unresolved and beautiful plans, or good intentions that never come to fruition. The worst part is not only are these things burdensome, they're imaginary, because they don't physically exist. But oh, once it starts...
I think it fits in well with the "unresolved" nature of the long division metaphor (which has been thoroughly explained). Striving for the perfect solution to an unending problem is asking for toil and frustration.