I've always thought that this song, like Throwing Off Glass, and The Last Recluse is about Gord's feelings about a daughter growing up and the changing of the parent/child relationship. "When the people you want to don't, and the people who do, you don't believe" seems like what every teen goes through, when their peer's opinions start to take precedent over their parents, and all you want is the love and affirmation of your friends, and you kinda forget that your family already loves and accepts you.
The last verse of the song always breaks my heart, as it seems to me he's saying "I know that you're growing up and away from me, and needing me less in your life, but I'm not giving up (we're born to persevere), I'm sticking around until you need me in your life again (Honey, I'd walk into your painting until I reappear)--and the most heart-breaking part, where his desperation shows through and he admits that he'll take anything at all as long as he's in her life somewhere (In a speck of comet-tail dust, or a blue-green Northern Light, flickering just in your eye's deepest ravine).
To me, if this song is just about some ex-girlfriend, it loses some of what makes it so emotionally charged. You get over ex-gf's; how do you get over the little people you created growing up and basically leaving your life?
I don't know any other songwriter that can wring as much emotion out of a song as Gord can, without the lyrics ever becoming trite or hokey.
I've always thought that this song, like Throwing Off Glass, and The Last Recluse is about Gord's feelings about a daughter growing up and the changing of the parent/child relationship. "When the people you want to don't, and the people who do, you don't believe" seems like what every teen goes through, when their peer's opinions start to take precedent over their parents, and all you want is the love and affirmation of your friends, and you kinda forget that your family already loves and accepts you. The last verse of the song always breaks my heart, as it seems to me he's saying "I know that you're growing up and away from me, and needing me less in your life, but I'm not giving up (we're born to persevere), I'm sticking around until you need me in your life again (Honey, I'd walk into your painting until I reappear)--and the most heart-breaking part, where his desperation shows through and he admits that he'll take anything at all as long as he's in her life somewhere (In a speck of comet-tail dust, or a blue-green Northern Light, flickering just in your eye's deepest ravine). To me, if this song is just about some ex-girlfriend, it loses some of what makes it so emotionally charged. You get over ex-gf's; how do you get over the little people you created growing up and basically leaving your life? I don't know any other songwriter that can wring as much emotion out of a song as Gord can, without the lyrics ever becoming trite or hokey.