I think the key to the song is not religion but nostalgia. Nostalgia is always touched with the sadness of loss. The reference to the temperature of the church is hardly a censure of religion rather than a visceral depiction one can easily relate to.
The whole thing is written quite haphazardly; probably from a collection of notes which are really non-sequiturs; the sun shining through a window is not like solar energy it is solar energy, and it has no more to do with the following than rock candy has to do with the second verse, unless you find a cold church sickly sweet- no i think it's here to hold space and because it is also a bit nostalgic.
It's easy to assume Kozelek has poured layer on layer of thought into these lyrics because he sings them both so well and so earnestly, but if you presented them as poetry to someone who'd never heard them sung I don't think the response would always be so positive and I often wish he'd revised parts of them. On the other hand, if he had then some of the most beautiful rough edges might have got knocked off and they may not have been so encompassing- for instance the whole 'good as Dad/dead' pun in New Jersey is awful but I wouldn't be without it in the song, and 'I've being having mental problems' is not how one should leave a lyric but it's so powerful because of that.
The dynamic of this song, I agree, is angled to the perverse as a temper for this nostalgia. I'd assumed the second stanza was merely a trite account of a child asking after the gender of her future sibling. This gives the song a balance in that Kozelek appreciates both 'macabre' and 'positive' auspices. Recently though I think the touch of perversity that threads the song and gives it its title runs right through the lyric and what makes Kozelek feel good may be in the inference that the women the child is asking after is both in earshot and not actually pregnant; ha-ha indeed.
@The Reality Unicorn Actually, that last bit is way too convoluted for a 1990's lyric, on third thoughts there is a simple solution- the child is asking her parents if he, Mark Kozelek, with his long hair and youthful complexion, is male or female.
@The Reality Unicorn Actually, that last bit is way too convoluted for a 1990's lyric, on third thoughts there is a simple solution- the child is asking her parents if he, Mark Kozelek, with his long hair and youthful complexion, is male or female.
I think the key to the song is not religion but nostalgia. Nostalgia is always touched with the sadness of loss. The reference to the temperature of the church is hardly a censure of religion rather than a visceral depiction one can easily relate to.
The whole thing is written quite haphazardly; probably from a collection of notes which are really non-sequiturs; the sun shining through a window is not like solar energy it is solar energy, and it has no more to do with the following than rock candy has to do with the second verse, unless you find a cold church sickly sweet- no i think it's here to hold space and because it is also a bit nostalgic.
It's easy to assume Kozelek has poured layer on layer of thought into these lyrics because he sings them both so well and so earnestly, but if you presented them as poetry to someone who'd never heard them sung I don't think the response would always be so positive and I often wish he'd revised parts of them. On the other hand, if he had then some of the most beautiful rough edges might have got knocked off and they may not have been so encompassing- for instance the whole 'good as Dad/dead' pun in New Jersey is awful but I wouldn't be without it in the song, and 'I've being having mental problems' is not how one should leave a lyric but it's so powerful because of that.
The dynamic of this song, I agree, is angled to the perverse as a temper for this nostalgia. I'd assumed the second stanza was merely a trite account of a child asking after the gender of her future sibling. This gives the song a balance in that Kozelek appreciates both 'macabre' and 'positive' auspices. Recently though I think the touch of perversity that threads the song and gives it its title runs right through the lyric and what makes Kozelek feel good may be in the inference that the women the child is asking after is both in earshot and not actually pregnant; ha-ha indeed.
@The Reality Unicorn Actually, that last bit is way too convoluted for a 1990's lyric, on third thoughts there is a simple solution- the child is asking her parents if he, Mark Kozelek, with his long hair and youthful complexion, is male or female.
@The Reality Unicorn Actually, that last bit is way too convoluted for a 1990's lyric, on third thoughts there is a simple solution- the child is asking her parents if he, Mark Kozelek, with his long hair and youthful complexion, is male or female.