I think longing for a 'treaty' is longing for security and common ground once a meaningful love affair is over. The first and second stanzas describe the relationship as something domestically blissful and as miraculous as turning water into wine (first stanza), + as something which made the singer complete: his partner was his truth ('I haven't said a word ... that any liar couldn't say as well') and both earth and sky/aerial (second stanza). The 'static' of silence after the separation is thus hard to believe contrasted with such a deep communication.
The chorus introduces the central theme, which is freedom. On the one hand, the singer would rather be bound by a treaty establishing how things might continue even regardless of costs, ego etc. ('I do not care who takes this bloody hill') On the other hand there is some freedom gained by the separation. Being in love meant enslavement and breaking up is liberating ('we sold ourselves for love, but now we're free'), like a jubilee in the Jewish tradition. Through this separation he also realizes he treated his partner as a fragment of himself rather than a flesh-and-blood human being, reminiscent of the biblical story of Adam and Eve as made from his rib (I'm sorry for the ghost I made you be/Only one of us was real and that was me')
This mistake was something the singer was perhaps 'baffled' to realize he was making, like the snake in the biblical story in the third stanza. The kind of evil we inflict in relationships is banal in this sense, and it's not clear it's even possible to change: besides the incredible vulnerability of starting anew ('born again is born without a skin'), there is no guarantee the inherent faults will disappear rather than 'poison everything'. I think this solution of internal change is contrasted to that of a treaty (external, agreed by someone else). The fact that he says 'I wish there was a treaty' (not 'let's sign a treaty') suggests he is pessimistic even this is possible: wars between human beings end in 'static', not better agreements.
I think longing for a 'treaty' is longing for security and common ground once a meaningful love affair is over. The first and second stanzas describe the relationship as something domestically blissful and as miraculous as turning water into wine (first stanza), + as something which made the singer complete: his partner was his truth ('I haven't said a word ... that any liar couldn't say as well') and both earth and sky/aerial (second stanza). The 'static' of silence after the separation is thus hard to believe contrasted with such a deep communication.
The chorus introduces the central theme, which is freedom. On the one hand, the singer would rather be bound by a treaty establishing how things might continue even regardless of costs, ego etc. ('I do not care who takes this bloody hill') On the other hand there is some freedom gained by the separation. Being in love meant enslavement and breaking up is liberating ('we sold ourselves for love, but now we're free'), like a jubilee in the Jewish tradition. Through this separation he also realizes he treated his partner as a fragment of himself rather than a flesh-and-blood human being, reminiscent of the biblical story of Adam and Eve as made from his rib (I'm sorry for the ghost I made you be/Only one of us was real and that was me')
This mistake was something the singer was perhaps 'baffled' to realize he was making, like the snake in the biblical story in the third stanza. The kind of evil we inflict in relationships is banal in this sense, and it's not clear it's even possible to change: besides the incredible vulnerability of starting anew ('born again is born without a skin'), there is no guarantee the inherent faults will disappear rather than 'poison everything'. I think this solution of internal change is contrasted to that of a treaty (external, agreed by someone else). The fact that he says 'I wish there was a treaty' (not 'let's sign a treaty') suggests he is pessimistic even this is possible: wars between human beings end in 'static', not better agreements.