Epic song. The great thing about songs\poetry is the ambiguity allows the listener\reader to project the meaning from their own lives onto it, and hence it becomes far more significant and enjoyable.
To me, this is a man in a long-term relationship ("We gotta love to last for a million years"), who knows he doesn't love her ("Our love, girl, is going through changes. I don't know if I'm alive, dead, dying, or just a little jaded"). He's once again in bad-books ("send home your hard-working jury, I'm going down this time"). He knows the relationship is doomed, knows he must end it, yet can't tell her ("So if you hear me crying, or talking in my sleep. Don't be afraid, it's just the hours that I keep"), because he knows it will destroy her ("I've seen the future in the tracks of your tears").
He thinks the only way she'll ever get over him is if he splits because of some failure in his own life, perhaps drug-addiction, then he'll never have to break her by telling her he's fallen out of love ("All I can do is hope that you will see me fall"). He knows it's coming ("I cast a shorter shadow with every passing day
... I'm just fading away"), and when he does leave her, he desperately wants her to be strong enough overcome her loss ("Do your best to smash my picture on your wall"). But he knows he means the world to her ("Some kind of magic in all your hopes and fears") and he's beset with worry that she'll never recover ("All those tears") ("I've seen the future in the tracks of your tears").
Epic song. The great thing about songs\poetry is the ambiguity allows the listener\reader to project the meaning from their own lives onto it, and hence it becomes far more significant and enjoyable.
To me, this is a man in a long-term relationship ("We gotta love to last for a million years"), who knows he doesn't love her ("Our love, girl, is going through changes. I don't know if I'm alive, dead, dying, or just a little jaded"). He's once again in bad-books ("send home your hard-working jury, I'm going down this time"). He knows the relationship is doomed, knows he must end it, yet can't tell her ("So if you hear me crying, or talking in my sleep. Don't be afraid, it's just the hours that I keep"), because he knows it will destroy her ("I've seen the future in the tracks of your tears").
He thinks the only way she'll ever get over him is if he splits because of some failure in his own life, perhaps drug-addiction, then he'll never have to break her by telling her he's fallen out of love ("All I can do is hope that you will see me fall"). He knows it's coming ("I cast a shorter shadow with every passing day ... I'm just fading away"), and when he does leave her, he desperately wants her to be strong enough overcome her loss ("Do your best to smash my picture on your wall"). But he knows he means the world to her ("Some kind of magic in all your hopes and fears") and he's beset with worry that she'll never recover ("All those tears") ("I've seen the future in the tracks of your tears").
Utterly haunting and brilliant.