I've enjoyed this song for years without contemplating or even really knowing the lyrics. The quality of the sound alone was enough alone to evoke a painful and haunting mood but the lyrics really drives home a great portrait of the singer.
The song is a disturbing love letter to an ex. Before the relationship he saw himself as the blind squirrel. The proverbial "nice guy" who never gets the girl but it this case somehow did. But of course once he did, they were pretty much fucked. And his acknowledgment of that is perhaps his most self-aware moment. After the relationship has ended, he is the rat, something unwelcome that is resilient. And in that period he fantasized about a world when plague or disaster left him and his ex the only two remaining because then of course she would be with him. But since then he has settled down a little bit and she has allowed him back into her life as a friend where he has bided his time watching her other relationships thinking that if he can wait them out she will eventually have him back. But that hasn't worked bringing him to the grenade with their names scratched on the side. That is not a romantic metaphor. That is a threat. He is no longer fantasizing about plague bringing them together but is contemplating murder-suicide. But he's not quite ready for that yet because "love is not enough". And so he goes into a second verse that describes his disconnect with the rest of humanity. And by the end he's still saying "love is not enough" but I think that someday it might be.
I think it's great in the same way as The Catcher in the Rye is at creating audience empathy for a disturbed narrator.
I've enjoyed this song for years without contemplating or even really knowing the lyrics. The quality of the sound alone was enough alone to evoke a painful and haunting mood but the lyrics really drives home a great portrait of the singer.
The song is a disturbing love letter to an ex. Before the relationship he saw himself as the blind squirrel. The proverbial "nice guy" who never gets the girl but it this case somehow did. But of course once he did, they were pretty much fucked. And his acknowledgment of that is perhaps his most self-aware moment. After the relationship has ended, he is the rat, something unwelcome that is resilient. And in that period he fantasized about a world when plague or disaster left him and his ex the only two remaining because then of course she would be with him. But since then he has settled down a little bit and she has allowed him back into her life as a friend where he has bided his time watching her other relationships thinking that if he can wait them out she will eventually have him back. But that hasn't worked bringing him to the grenade with their names scratched on the side. That is not a romantic metaphor. That is a threat. He is no longer fantasizing about plague bringing them together but is contemplating murder-suicide. But he's not quite ready for that yet because "love is not enough". And so he goes into a second verse that describes his disconnect with the rest of humanity. And by the end he's still saying "love is not enough" but I think that someday it might be.
I think it's great in the same way as The Catcher in the Rye is at creating audience empathy for a disturbed narrator.