Here's Andy Partridge on the meaning of this song, as quoted by Chalkhills.org's "Reel by Real" discography:
"I was frozen with writers block. Then suddenly this song came out. I was really frightened. I mean, I couldn't even finish the demo because I was in tears. It felt like seeing yourself in a mirror and recognising your own mortality. Maybe it's something in the chord changes. I don't understand the lyrics, which is rather exciting."
While he says he himself doesn't understand it, the song uses a bunch of tropes that may help in deciphering it:
-Title: The rook/crow/raven is an ominous creature associated with death in a bunch of European cultures. In Celtic mythology crows could be psychopomps (creatures that ferry souls down to the world of the dead, as in the lines "If I die..." in this song). And of course in Poe's famous poem "The Raven," the speaker repeatedly questions the raven about the afterlife: will he ever see his beloved Lenore again? A similar scenario to that of this song.
-"Read from your book": the idea of a book that records the destinies of everyone and especially the fates if mortals in the afterlife is also very common in Western mythology, perhaps best remembered in the form of the Book of Life mentioned in the Bible, in Revelation.
-"Is that my name on the bell?" Cities used to have big bell towers, and the bell would be ritually tolled to accompany a funeral procession. This association between bells and death was cemented by a famous line from a John Donne sermon, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee." Keeping this famous quote in mind gives a sense of irony to this line of the song: the speaker is failing to recognize Donne's point: we're all doomed to die, so you may as well write your name on the bell.
-"Gaze in the brook": another common folk-tale trope, gazing in a reflective surface like the magic mirror in "Snow White" in order to be shown hidden truths.
-"Before I'll let go": In the Odyssey, Menelaus has to hold onto the shape-shifting god Proteus while Proteus changes forms repeatedly until he finally gives up and tells Menelaus what he wants to know. This kind of thing happens in other ancient stories, like when Jacob wrestles "a man" (God or an angel?) in Genesis until he gets the man to agree to bless him.
NOTES:
Here's Andy Partridge on the meaning of this song, as quoted by Chalkhills.org's "Reel by Real" discography:
"I was frozen with writers block. Then suddenly this song came out. I was really frightened. I mean, I couldn't even finish the demo because I was in tears. It felt like seeing yourself in a mirror and recognising your own mortality. Maybe it's something in the chord changes. I don't understand the lyrics, which is rather exciting."
While he says he himself doesn't understand it, the song uses a bunch of tropes that may help in deciphering it:
-Title: The rook/crow/raven is an ominous creature associated with death in a bunch of European cultures. In Celtic mythology crows could be psychopomps (creatures that ferry souls down to the world of the dead, as in the lines "If I die..." in this song). And of course in Poe's famous poem "The Raven," the speaker repeatedly questions the raven about the afterlife: will he ever see his beloved Lenore again? A similar scenario to that of this song.
-"Read from your book": the idea of a book that records the destinies of everyone and especially the fates if mortals in the afterlife is also very common in Western mythology, perhaps best remembered in the form of the Book of Life mentioned in the Bible, in Revelation.
-"Is that my name on the bell?" Cities used to have big bell towers, and the bell would be ritually tolled to accompany a funeral procession. This association between bells and death was cemented by a famous line from a John Donne sermon, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee." Keeping this famous quote in mind gives a sense of irony to this line of the song: the speaker is failing to recognize Donne's point: we're all doomed to die, so you may as well write your name on the bell.
-"Gaze in the brook": another common folk-tale trope, gazing in a reflective surface like the magic mirror in "Snow White" in order to be shown hidden truths.
-"Before I'll let go": In the Odyssey, Menelaus has to hold onto the shape-shifting god Proteus while Proteus changes forms repeatedly until he finally gives up and tells Menelaus what he wants to know. This kind of thing happens in other ancient stories, like when Jacob wrestles "a man" (God or an angel?) in Genesis until he gets the man to agree to bless him.