I've just been talking with a friend, and her situation reminded me of this song, so here's my tuppenceworth on its meaning.
The singer has been out somewhere with a man. It's been a while since they last talked, and he's told her of his newfound contentment with a new partner. Now it's afterwards, and he's driving the singer home. The two of them have some shared history, either as lovers or as friends with lover potential. Now she knows that door has closed forever, and she's feeling the first bleakness of it.
It's autumn, a dry day after harvest, and the farmworkers are burning straw and stubble left in the fields. It's also the autumn of their relationship - what was previously warm with possibility, now promises only increasing cold and distance. Some of the smoke has got into the car and hangs in the air between them, showing the way he'll fade from her life, the way any familiar but absent face fades through time. Sitting here side by side, she's physically close to this significant man, but already feels he's drifting away from her, and that will continue until she's nothing to him. But he'll never be nothing to her. Too late, she's realised that this is where she wants to spend her life, at his side, feeling alive with this excitement and pain, but knows now that it will never happen.
At the same time she knows it isn't the real version of this man that she wants, but her imagined version of him. So while her heart is yearning for the man beside her, her mind is telling her that this is illusory. They reach her home and have a clumsy parting kiss, clumsy because it means more to each of them than either is pretending, a fumbled moment of stolen intimacy. And as he drives away, she knows that he's found his fulfilment without her, leaving her behind and still searching for hers. Her life will be less for the lack of him.
And whenever in future she smells burning stubble, it will bring her immediately back to this place, this time, these feelings.
And all this in that vulnerable voice and that lovely, wistful music.
There you go, a 350-word interpretation of a song Ms Bush polished off in a quarter of that. Such is the artistic gift.
I've just been talking with a friend, and her situation reminded me of this song, so here's my tuppenceworth on its meaning.
The singer has been out somewhere with a man. It's been a while since they last talked, and he's told her of his newfound contentment with a new partner. Now it's afterwards, and he's driving the singer home. The two of them have some shared history, either as lovers or as friends with lover potential. Now she knows that door has closed forever, and she's feeling the first bleakness of it.
It's autumn, a dry day after harvest, and the farmworkers are burning straw and stubble left in the fields. It's also the autumn of their relationship - what was previously warm with possibility, now promises only increasing cold and distance. Some of the smoke has got into the car and hangs in the air between them, showing the way he'll fade from her life, the way any familiar but absent face fades through time. Sitting here side by side, she's physically close to this significant man, but already feels he's drifting away from her, and that will continue until she's nothing to him. But he'll never be nothing to her. Too late, she's realised that this is where she wants to spend her life, at his side, feeling alive with this excitement and pain, but knows now that it will never happen.
At the same time she knows it isn't the real version of this man that she wants, but her imagined version of him. So while her heart is yearning for the man beside her, her mind is telling her that this is illusory. They reach her home and have a clumsy parting kiss, clumsy because it means more to each of them than either is pretending, a fumbled moment of stolen intimacy. And as he drives away, she knows that he's found his fulfilment without her, leaving her behind and still searching for hers. Her life will be less for the lack of him.
And whenever in future she smells burning stubble, it will bring her immediately back to this place, this time, these feelings.
And all this in that vulnerable voice and that lovely, wistful music.
There you go, a 350-word interpretation of a song Ms Bush polished off in a quarter of that. Such is the artistic gift.
What an absolutely stunning interpretation. Left me breathless.
What an absolutely stunning interpretation. Left me breathless.
@TrueThomas Spot-on interpretation. Agree with it completely.
@TrueThomas Spot-on interpretation. Agree with it completely.
@TrueThomas Perfect! thank u.
@TrueThomas Perfect! thank u.