This is a gem of a song and I am surprised it doesn’t have any interpretations as of me scribbling this one down. Although, as with some of the best London Grammar songs, it’s imagery is subtle and has a touch of the surrealist, and is difficult to pin down.
I have listened to this song over and over, and it doesn’t paint an obvious picture to my mind, but invokes feelings attached to specific life events, which makes it so good. But without wanting to damage this effect, and having thought about this song a lot, my interpretation, for what it’s worth, is that it’s about a religious figure. Probably an obscure one if it is. But, in my western upbringing, it draws on the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, possibly borrowing from the apocrypha and other interpretations of the characters (as portrayed in the movie “Mary Magdalene” (2018).
The singer perhaps is one of the apostles, warning Jesus of Mary’s fitness for the Discipleship, on account of her being a woman and reputation as a prostitute. And perhaps Jesus’s reputed favoured love for her (possibly sexual in nature), over the other disciples too? Alternatively, it could be that it’s the moment when Mary testifies to the other disciples that she saw Jesus risen again, and was initially disbelieved by some?
It’s seems the singer is talking to Jesus as a idealist who “healed the earth behind a broken creature” - a reference to his own crucifixion?
Then the moving lines of “what we are and what we need, are different things”, is an obvious universal truth, but one which might refer to Jesus being a human being, denied earthly needs such as sexual love and a family life? Or perhaps his divinity vs. the earthly needs of his human form? Or Jesus’s teachings that we just need love (and to love), but we are in fact in biblical and Christian beliefs, born sinful and mainly exist as hateful creatures?
Whatever the inspiration for this song, the fact that it is called ‘non believer’, makes it impossible for me to see it as anything but a religious vignette of some kind.
I hope others can put some other perspective on it ????????
This is a gem of a song and I am surprised it doesn’t have any interpretations as of me scribbling this one down. Although, as with some of the best London Grammar songs, it’s imagery is subtle and has a touch of the surrealist, and is difficult to pin down.
I have listened to this song over and over, and it doesn’t paint an obvious picture to my mind, but invokes feelings attached to specific life events, which makes it so good. But without wanting to damage this effect, and having thought about this song a lot, my interpretation, for what it’s worth, is that it’s about a religious figure. Probably an obscure one if it is. But, in my western upbringing, it draws on the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, possibly borrowing from the apocrypha and other interpretations of the characters (as portrayed in the movie “Mary Magdalene” (2018).
The singer perhaps is one of the apostles, warning Jesus of Mary’s fitness for the Discipleship, on account of her being a woman and reputation as a prostitute. And perhaps Jesus’s reputed favoured love for her (possibly sexual in nature), over the other disciples too? Alternatively, it could be that it’s the moment when Mary testifies to the other disciples that she saw Jesus risen again, and was initially disbelieved by some?
It’s seems the singer is talking to Jesus as a idealist who “healed the earth behind a broken creature” - a reference to his own crucifixion?
Then the moving lines of “what we are and what we need, are different things”, is an obvious universal truth, but one which might refer to Jesus being a human being, denied earthly needs such as sexual love and a family life? Or perhaps his divinity vs. the earthly needs of his human form? Or Jesus’s teachings that we just need love (and to love), but we are in fact in biblical and Christian beliefs, born sinful and mainly exist as hateful creatures?
Whatever the inspiration for this song, the fact that it is called ‘non believer’, makes it impossible for me to see it as anything but a religious vignette of some kind.
I hope others can put some other perspective on it ????????