This song is about infatuation and how it can overtake a person's life.
The song begins by telling about a woman who desires a man, though the man is not willing to reciprocate the woman's feelings. When he turns his eyes away from her (perhaps at a party or gathering), she thinks this is a bad omen (an "albatross," which is an allegorical symbol of bad luck described in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by the 18th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge). The man in the song knows the woman is interested in him ("He knows he holds dominion over me"), yet he refrains from reciprocating the woman's feelings ("We share the cold embrace of cousins"). The woman, nevertheless, is entranced by his presence ("What I gain is worth the cost")--so much so that as she ponders where he comes from ("his ancestry"), he slips out the door without saying good-bye.
The chorus metaphorically explains how she reads him ("telling of the story," "lose my way inside a prepositional phrase," "I read his lips"), yet she realizes she should be afraid of such infatuation of a man who couldn't care less about her.
The final verse further describes the woman's continued infatuation at a later time. She wakes up every morning in a fog, perhaps from dreaming of the man overnight. She watches the clock go backward, the artist's way of saying the woman thinks back to the night she met the man. She sees the water "run uphill," another way of saying she thinks back to the previous encounter.
In essence, she knows her intense passion is unreasonable and that she should be afraid, but her mind says otherwise. Infatuation has overtaken her.
This song is about infatuation and how it can overtake a person's life.
The song begins by telling about a woman who desires a man, though the man is not willing to reciprocate the woman's feelings. When he turns his eyes away from her (perhaps at a party or gathering), she thinks this is a bad omen (an "albatross," which is an allegorical symbol of bad luck described in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by the 18th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge). The man in the song knows the woman is interested in him ("He knows he holds dominion over me"), yet he refrains from reciprocating the woman's feelings ("We share the cold embrace of cousins"). The woman, nevertheless, is entranced by his presence ("What I gain is worth the cost")--so much so that as she ponders where he comes from ("his ancestry"), he slips out the door without saying good-bye.
The chorus metaphorically explains how she reads him ("telling of the story," "lose my way inside a prepositional phrase," "I read his lips"), yet she realizes she should be afraid of such infatuation of a man who couldn't care less about her.
The final verse further describes the woman's continued infatuation at a later time. She wakes up every morning in a fog, perhaps from dreaming of the man overnight. She watches the clock go backward, the artist's way of saying the woman thinks back to the night she met the man. She sees the water "run uphill," another way of saying she thinks back to the previous encounter.
In essence, she knows her intense passion is unreasonable and that she should be afraid, but her mind says otherwise. Infatuation has overtaken her.