It may at the start be someone who can't take hearing that love is just a four letter word [perhaps a previous lover of the woman with baby who has been overheard rejecting/saying love is merely a word?] ! So after trying to vanish, evaporate the young man/narrator comes full circle; maybe now not as caught or deeply shocked, having understood other insights but still only able to repeat what he first overheard. The lyrics try to resolve it, convince himself but is it left open (like a song wound}?
It may at the start be someone who can't take hearing that love is just a four letter word [perhaps a previous lover of the woman with baby who has been overheard rejecting/saying love is merely a word?] ! So after trying to vanish, evaporate the young man/narrator comes full circle; maybe now not as caught or deeply shocked, having understood other insights but still only able to repeat what he first overheard. The lyrics try to resolve it, convince himself but is it left open (like a song wound}?