A Lion's Heart

There's a palace a fallin' There's a smoke in the sky There's a boy running downhill to the lowlands tonight And he's catching the train to where he's heard you have been He's a fool now among us, a dreamer within Dreaming of you

To me this song is about some poor sap that falls hopelessly in love with the woman of his dreams. That also pretty much sums up the first verse; he drops everything and chases this girl.

And on that day there was snowfall in the street, yellow light And they cleared the bill and rails just by those dark shimmer eyes In that land there's a winter In that winter's a day In that day there's a moment when it all goes your way And you know it's a lion's heart That will tumble and tear apart When he's coming down the hills for you

This verse shows both the fervor and the persistence of this guy. He believes that in the whole dang winter, he must have his moment eventually. He's determined that at some point things are going to start going his way. He has a lion's heart that will tumble and tear apart, to me this shows his aggressive passion. He won't let anything get in his way.

But can you still now remember who's been hiding up there? Through his howling at twilight all his songs of despair? Do you remember the caller of a black and white crime? Well he lives by that memory and falls from his mind And you know it's a lion's heart That will tumble and tear apart When he's coming down the hills for you

The story jumps forwards a little. We get a taste of how things are going to turn out for the poor guy "Can you still now remember who’s been hiding up there, through his howling at twilight all his songs of despair". Bummer. Well, we now see that he's been unsuccessful thus far. However, he hasn’t given up yet, that lion’s heart is still driving him towards that girl.

Well he'll walk in the city forever Oh, walk in a time to be gone Well there's no real goodbye if you mean it So I guess I'm forever alone

Hope? Not really. He finally gives up and spends the rest of his days drifting aimlessly through life, without hope of every finding another person to love.

Now he's a stranger among us, he will die in the park Where he hides from the statues and the weather remarks In that land there's a winter In that winter's a day In that day there's a moment when it all goes away And you know it's a lion's heart That will tumble and tear apart When it's coming down the hills for you

The last verse utilizes some of the lines from earlier in the song, but they certainly don’t hold the same meaning. “In that day there’s a moment when it all goes away”, though it once represented the naïve belief that eventually things will turn up, the singer now uses it to show the mans helpless outlook, and trust that sometime soon it will all just go away. Does that mean he’s waiting for death to take him? I haven’t really decided. Second is “You know it’s a lion’s heart, that will tumble and tear apart”, which once symbolized his passionate and relentless drive to win the woman of his dreams. I envisioned him tackling and tearing apart any metaphorical obstacles that may have stood between him and the woman of his dreams; now I feel that his once righteous heart is now tumbling to the ground and slowly tearing itself apart.

Very melancholic song. If I could summarize it in one word it would have to be “bummer”. Of course all of this is just my opinion, let me know what you think.