To me this song is about seeing a loved one (like your parents, as the line "I'm an apple you're the tree, I won't fall when you're shook") grow old and being there for them when they get sick.
Almost self explanatory, the first verse says that he is watching over the bedridden person, maybe at the hospital after a health scare.
In the second verse he is kind of apologising ("I'm not an angel, I never mean to make you cry"). Maybe he wasn't always the best person he could be when growing up but the person now sick was always there for him regardless of how unreasonable he was ("jumping through my hoops with dissension in the troops") with "a smile and a sigh".
The third verse, at first puzzling he is essentially asking the person to say anything at all to him. It could be from the heart or "from the phone book", which could be anything really, as long as something is said he would feel better since it means the person is getting better.
In the chorus he notices ("what's that over your shoulder?") that his loved one is coming to the realization that he is older now, maybe too old ("fear of getting older") and is afraid of the end being near but he wants the person to "stay with" him.
To me this song is about seeing a loved one (like your parents, as the line "I'm an apple you're the tree, I won't fall when you're shook") grow old and being there for them when they get sick.
Almost self explanatory, the first verse says that he is watching over the bedridden person, maybe at the hospital after a health scare.
In the second verse he is kind of apologising ("I'm not an angel, I never mean to make you cry"). Maybe he wasn't always the best person he could be when growing up but the person now sick was always there for him regardless of how unreasonable he was ("jumping through my hoops with dissension in the troops") with "a smile and a sigh".
The third verse, at first puzzling he is essentially asking the person to say anything at all to him. It could be from the heart or "from the phone book", which could be anything really, as long as something is said he would feel better since it means the person is getting better.
In the chorus he notices ("what's that over your shoulder?") that his loved one is coming to the realization that he is older now, maybe too old ("fear of getting older") and is afraid of the end being near but he wants the person to "stay with" him.
*Originally posted by me on Genius.