I'll leave this as a stand-alone comment rather than as a reply to a previous comment:
"I don't really get a flippant "deal with it" vibe from this song. It feels kind of like he was in a relationship but has come to the realization that there's no future in it, a summer romance that has run its course, but she's not letting go. He doesn't want it to be that way but he kind find any sort of deeper connection with this girl (he'd "like to get deeper in" but can't even find the water in the first place)."
The reason I came back to it is that I hadn't said anything about the connection to this (the first song on the album) and Smile (the last song), which links back here and sort of comes full circle. Not just the "plastic soldiers slowly growing older" line but also the seasonal theme. In Plastic Soldiers the summer has ended, but in Smile it's just beginning. ("It seems like the spring has come and gone / It felt like forever / Wait 'til the summer comes / Then you'll find me there." It's like he's been waiting through the long fall, winter, and spring so that he can reconnect with this girl and get lost in the summer all over again.
I'll leave this as a stand-alone comment rather than as a reply to a previous comment:
"I don't really get a flippant "deal with it" vibe from this song. It feels kind of like he was in a relationship but has come to the realization that there's no future in it, a summer romance that has run its course, but she's not letting go. He doesn't want it to be that way but he kind find any sort of deeper connection with this girl (he'd "like to get deeper in" but can't even find the water in the first place)."
The reason I came back to it is that I hadn't said anything about the connection to this (the first song on the album) and Smile (the last song), which links back here and sort of comes full circle. Not just the "plastic soldiers slowly growing older" line but also the seasonal theme. In Plastic Soldiers the summer has ended, but in Smile it's just beginning. ("It seems like the spring has come and gone / It felt like forever / Wait 'til the summer comes / Then you'll find me there." It's like he's been waiting through the long fall, winter, and spring so that he can reconnect with this girl and get lost in the summer all over again.