First, one note: What I've always heard is that he's smelling thyme, not tire.
So, I have no idea whether this is what the author intends the meaning to be, but here's what I imagine when I listen to this song:
He's asleep, having a dream about a white stick, a rock, etc. A voice interrupts, waking him: are you hungry? do you know what (you want) to eat?
The voice comes out above his head because it's someone leaning over him while he sleeps. He notices that she's close by, which makes quite an impression on him (he repeats it: "close to you, close to you")
"There is one bird in my house": bird being slang for an attractive lady. A wife or girlfriend? a nurse or caretaker? Don't know.
She explains: "you woke up from a dream". He's still a bit disoriented, but he starts to wake up and feel better when he hears music (the fact that he recognizes Mama Cass suggests to me that he might be a bit older?) and remembers where he is. Feeling better, he settles back into bed.
The rest of this is just what he observes. Some of it is seen through the open door or a window (the washing hanging in the sun, the man walking uphill "pursued by a bus" -- which I love, by the way. The man gets off the bus and starts walking uphill in the direction the bus was traveling, he can get a little distance ahead before the bus starts moving again, appearing to pursue him).
Some of it is within the room, like the ant along the edge of his book.
And he smells thyme because she's started cooking.
He's just lying there, taking it all in, feeling pretty good, chuckling at the fly that can't seem to make up its mind. Best part of it all, though: "there is one bird in my house" - he woke up to a pretty lady.
One more note: this shifts from first person ("it comes out above my head, close to you") to third ("he heard Mama Cass") at about the same place in the story where the guy fully wakes up. We go from being immersed in the first person of the dream world, to the third person of the waking world where we're observers along with him.
First, one note: What I've always heard is that he's smelling thyme, not tire.
So, I have no idea whether this is what the author intends the meaning to be, but here's what I imagine when I listen to this song:
He's asleep, having a dream about a white stick, a rock, etc. A voice interrupts, waking him: are you hungry? do you know what (you want) to eat?
The voice comes out above his head because it's someone leaning over him while he sleeps. He notices that she's close by, which makes quite an impression on him (he repeats it: "close to you, close to you")
"There is one bird in my house": bird being slang for an attractive lady. A wife or girlfriend? a nurse or caretaker? Don't know.
She explains: "you woke up from a dream". He's still a bit disoriented, but he starts to wake up and feel better when he hears music (the fact that he recognizes Mama Cass suggests to me that he might be a bit older?) and remembers where he is. Feeling better, he settles back into bed.
The rest of this is just what he observes. Some of it is seen through the open door or a window (the washing hanging in the sun, the man walking uphill "pursued by a bus" -- which I love, by the way. The man gets off the bus and starts walking uphill in the direction the bus was traveling, he can get a little distance ahead before the bus starts moving again, appearing to pursue him). Some of it is within the room, like the ant along the edge of his book.
And he smells thyme because she's started cooking.
He's just lying there, taking it all in, feeling pretty good, chuckling at the fly that can't seem to make up its mind. Best part of it all, though: "there is one bird in my house" - he woke up to a pretty lady.
One more note: this shifts from first person ("it comes out above my head, close to you") to third ("he heard Mama Cass") at about the same place in the story where the guy fully wakes up. We go from being immersed in the first person of the dream world, to the third person of the waking world where we're observers along with him.