(disclaimer: I decided to call the unnamed speaker Avey because Avey is a musical character created by the author who is Dave. pardon.)
I think this is Avey lamenting modern communication - how isolated the social world has become. "Everybody talking from their homes," texting and typing and never quite touching, or communicating organically. "It's hard to make my feelings known." The distance between "two human beings" is as vast as the space between planets. Avey isn't entirely hopeless, questioning the definitiveness of emotional distance. Must "mercury" - symbolically, the identifier for one who is not earthbound - be what divides them, or can the distance enforce individuality? Does being the "Mercury Man" necessarily make him so unreachable, or can this difference "slide… off"? Identifying mercury as a critical part of himself, Avey wonders if he can both "feel" and "be like mercury" while still being accepted by somebody so far away. Two definitions of mercury coexist, as the element Hg "slips" and "slides" and is physically felt, but the planet Mercury floats far from home, physically distant.
The "love" that has been lost (ie. the human connection) may be gone by means of new and isolating technology, but it's also a result of growing apathy. Avey is "wish[ing]" and "waiting" and wondering "what's to be done?" all the while losing confidence in his ability to act. "I keep calling,/ it feels like there's no one here." So he seems to just give it up as "a mess." He also wonders "is it me?" who is at fault for the loss of "the love."
The whole song bubbles with an electronic pulse, like some futuristic world where machines control what would otherwise be soulfully spilt from humans. The lyrics are wrought with tech/computer allusions (Hz, waves, tones, vibes, lines, calls), led by the symbolic telephone. The phone epitomizes the human disconnect; two people can talk to each other, but their conversation has been degraded to its base elements (ie. words). "I keep calling," as a literal phone call or as an attempt to reach out, but "it feels like" (for "feeling" has been designated the desired yet lost ideal) "there's no one here" because no one is.
The "we" is lost. "The love" can't be found. But Avey still confidently questions whether it can be found.
(disclaimer: I decided to call the unnamed speaker Avey because Avey is a musical character created by the author who is Dave. pardon.)
I think this is Avey lamenting modern communication - how isolated the social world has become. "Everybody talking from their homes," texting and typing and never quite touching, or communicating organically. "It's hard to make my feelings known." The distance between "two human beings" is as vast as the space between planets. Avey isn't entirely hopeless, questioning the definitiveness of emotional distance. Must "mercury" - symbolically, the identifier for one who is not earthbound - be what divides them, or can the distance enforce individuality? Does being the "Mercury Man" necessarily make him so unreachable, or can this difference "slide… off"? Identifying mercury as a critical part of himself, Avey wonders if he can both "feel" and "be like mercury" while still being accepted by somebody so far away. Two definitions of mercury coexist, as the element Hg "slips" and "slides" and is physically felt, but the planet Mercury floats far from home, physically distant.
The "love" that has been lost (ie. the human connection) may be gone by means of new and isolating technology, but it's also a result of growing apathy. Avey is "wish[ing]" and "waiting" and wondering "what's to be done?" all the while losing confidence in his ability to act. "I keep calling,/ it feels like there's no one here." So he seems to just give it up as "a mess." He also wonders "is it me?" who is at fault for the loss of "the love."
The whole song bubbles with an electronic pulse, like some futuristic world where machines control what would otherwise be soulfully spilt from humans. The lyrics are wrought with tech/computer allusions (Hz, waves, tones, vibes, lines, calls), led by the symbolic telephone. The phone epitomizes the human disconnect; two people can talk to each other, but their conversation has been degraded to its base elements (ie. words). "I keep calling," as a literal phone call or as an attempt to reach out, but "it feels like" (for "feeling" has been designated the desired yet lost ideal) "there's no one here" because no one is.
The "we" is lost. "The love" can't be found. But Avey still confidently questions whether it can be found.