It's more than loosely refering to Submarine. As everybody said, the song is refering to the end of a relationship. If you make a link to Submarine, you'll get the relationship of the parents. They are breaking up, but do this slowly. In my interpetation you can see the rythm and the text as the slow seperation.
The stopwatch refers to time.
The hourglass refers to time
The slow rythm at the begining, and long intro refers to time.
The rythm change refers to time.
Etc.
It's more than loosely refering to Submarine. As everybody said, the song is refering to the end of a relationship. If you make a link to Submarine, you'll get the relationship of the parents. They are breaking up, but do this slowly. In my interpetation you can see the rythm and the text as the slow seperation.
The stopwatch refers to time. The hourglass refers to time The slow rythm at the begining, and long intro refers to time. The rythm change refers to time. Etc.