These lyrics have some literary references, which makes it really interesting (to me at least). I've come across a few things in my reading, and I wonder if Dreyer intentionally put them there as a nod to literary influences.
'Then came a departure' is a line from a John Berryman poem: Dream Song 1. In the poem I think it's to do with it's protagonist's (Henry's) father's death. The 'departure' is a change into a more melancholic perception of the world, much like like the lyrics of Wildlife.
'The thing itself' is an idea coined by the philosopher Kant, which is basically thinking of something in isolation, without your relation to it; a reference to something existing independently without our understanding of it. In reference to the meaning of this song, I feel Dreyer is trying to say that there's something ahead of him that he doesn't quite understand - that it is apart from him, much like death is.
These lyrics have some literary references, which makes it really interesting (to me at least). I've come across a few things in my reading, and I wonder if Dreyer intentionally put them there as a nod to literary influences.
'Then came a departure' is a line from a John Berryman poem: Dream Song 1. In the poem I think it's to do with it's protagonist's (Henry's) father's death. The 'departure' is a change into a more melancholic perception of the world, much like like the lyrics of Wildlife.
'The thing itself' is an idea coined by the philosopher Kant, which is basically thinking of something in isolation, without your relation to it; a reference to something existing independently without our understanding of it. In reference to the meaning of this song, I feel Dreyer is trying to say that there's something ahead of him that he doesn't quite understand - that it is apart from him, much like death is.