I just 'discovered' this great song and band while in a Barnes & Noble, or rather, it discovered me. Like a siren, that refrain of "I was prepared to love you...and never expect anything of you" just woo'd me in. Now having listened to the song a number of times, here' my personal take:
It makes me picture a scene of a guy and a girl sitting across from each other at a table outdoors in some beer garden on a very slow Tuesday night (where no one else is nearby/within earshot, i.e., "I'll fall in the forest...no-one around to see"). The song is the guys reply to the girl after she has just given him a break-up speech. He intensely loves her and wants to stay together. He has committed his heart to love her, even though he knows she does not love him in the same way or in the same amount/dedication, that is, love him in the same self-sacrificial way that he does: a love from the lover which "never expects anything" of the beloved in return other than that the beloved simply continues to receive this love from the lover. This reflects somewhat the historical, univeral theme of "unrequited love", that is, of not merely returning love for love, but of even being unwilling to receive love and/or appreciate the offering of such self-sacrifical love. (i.e., "the familiar sting of the woodcutter's swing to the tree")
Anyway, having given him the break-up speech, she would prefer that he immediately take it in stride and immediately act like they are, can be, and will be "just friends". But he realizes that this is impossible right now (i.e., "there is no patron saint of silent restraint")...it would be fake, just an act on his part, as his heart can't do that. (i.e., "...don't lie to yourself") Rather, his heart is cut to the core (i.e., the familiar sting of the woodcutter's swing to the tree"), as he faces the painfual reality that she doesn't want him/his love or even appreciate the quality of the love he has for her and offers her, which "expects nothing in return" now or ever. He is forced to confront and see what he has tried to deny and/or what his intense love for her made him naive to: She doesn't have the same 'spirit' within her ("the spirit has left you baby"), no capacity for the same kind of love for him, if not also in his eyes for any other guy (given that it may be that their history together may have been of her being with him for a time before going through a repeated cycle of seeing other guys but then coming back to him over and over again as the reliable "fall-back guy" whom she knows will always give her that self-sacrificial love and devotion which she fails to find in the other, 'more attractive' guys she has seen). So he finally has to admit with the clarity he now has that the object of his love is "cold" (i.e., "you were the coldest star in the sky")...that no matter how intense the heat of his love for her, it will not warm her up to him, for she simply is unable to receive the fire of his love, let alone appreciate it.
So, in conclusion, since he now realizes this, he simply tells her to "get up and leave"....there is nothing nice hear, there is no silver lining (e.g., "Hey, we still can be friends, have friendship!") No, like all break-ups, divorces, it is a death. (i.e., a "funeral wake") There is no "us" there, if there ever was. And now the death is final, for even his love for her has died by her break-up speech.
I love songs that tell the truth. To me the beauty in art in a fallen, imperfect world is just that: To picture/paint/sing about existence not as it should be ("The Paradise to come"), or as it used to be (i.e., "The paradise which was lost"), but as it really is both for the good and the bad.
I just 'discovered' this great song and band while in a Barnes & Noble, or rather, it discovered me. Like a siren, that refrain of "I was prepared to love you...and never expect anything of you" just woo'd me in. Now having listened to the song a number of times, here' my personal take:
It makes me picture a scene of a guy and a girl sitting across from each other at a table outdoors in some beer garden on a very slow Tuesday night (where no one else is nearby/within earshot, i.e., "I'll fall in the forest...no-one around to see"). The song is the guys reply to the girl after she has just given him a break-up speech. He intensely loves her and wants to stay together. He has committed his heart to love her, even though he knows she does not love him in the same way or in the same amount/dedication, that is, love him in the same self-sacrificial way that he does: a love from the lover which "never expects anything" of the beloved in return other than that the beloved simply continues to receive this love from the lover. This reflects somewhat the historical, univeral theme of "unrequited love", that is, of not merely returning love for love, but of even being unwilling to receive love and/or appreciate the offering of such self-sacrifical love. (i.e., "the familiar sting of the woodcutter's swing to the tree")
Anyway, having given him the break-up speech, she would prefer that he immediately take it in stride and immediately act like they are, can be, and will be "just friends". But he realizes that this is impossible right now (i.e., "there is no patron saint of silent restraint")...it would be fake, just an act on his part, as his heart can't do that. (i.e., "...don't lie to yourself") Rather, his heart is cut to the core (i.e., the familiar sting of the woodcutter's swing to the tree"), as he faces the painfual reality that she doesn't want him/his love or even appreciate the quality of the love he has for her and offers her, which "expects nothing in return" now or ever. He is forced to confront and see what he has tried to deny and/or what his intense love for her made him naive to: She doesn't have the same 'spirit' within her ("the spirit has left you baby"), no capacity for the same kind of love for him, if not also in his eyes for any other guy (given that it may be that their history together may have been of her being with him for a time before going through a repeated cycle of seeing other guys but then coming back to him over and over again as the reliable "fall-back guy" whom she knows will always give her that self-sacrificial love and devotion which she fails to find in the other, 'more attractive' guys she has seen). So he finally has to admit with the clarity he now has that the object of his love is "cold" (i.e., "you were the coldest star in the sky")...that no matter how intense the heat of his love for her, it will not warm her up to him, for she simply is unable to receive the fire of his love, let alone appreciate it.
So, in conclusion, since he now realizes this, he simply tells her to "get up and leave"....there is nothing nice hear, there is no silver lining (e.g., "Hey, we still can be friends, have friendship!") No, like all break-ups, divorces, it is a death. (i.e., a "funeral wake") There is no "us" there, if there ever was. And now the death is final, for even his love for her has died by her break-up speech.
I love songs that tell the truth. To me the beauty in art in a fallen, imperfect world is just that: To picture/paint/sing about existence not as it should be ("The Paradise to come"), or as it used to be (i.e., "The paradise which was lost"), but as it really is both for the good and the bad.