Something's a little off, and it's hard to say what. That's what the song is about, and that's the feeling that it cultivates, in both the lyrics and the music.
For starters, "earthquake weather" is deliberate nonsense. Weather and earthquakes are unrelated. But what it suggests is that conditions are ripe for something powerful and destructive to happen. The idea that something powerful and destructive might happen soon comes up a few times: "pain and doubts in your little brain," "a rip tide could rip us away," " a void we filled with death." Or, most simply, "something's coming." Something bad, for sure.
And what's behind that? A feeling: "sky is purple," "dogs are howling." Subtle atmospheric signs are ominous and so the narrator expects something bad is coming.
Is it more specific than that? Yes, it's not an earthquake. The narrator and whoever else is on his side have "been drivin' thru a desert looking for a life to call our own." It could be a couple, it could be a band, it could even be a business. Whoever they are, they are looking for something… and it's not working. And it seems like things just might break soon. The relationship will end, or the band will, or whatever. An earthquake.
And not even the best of things can over come it, as the first line starts us off with. Space ships are amazing, but they can't tame a jungle. Something complicated and fraught with peril is too much for best efforts to overcome.
A clever way that the lyrics create this feeling is that complete thoughts dangle off the ends of lines and pick up again after a break. "Pain and doubts" sounds like the end of the line, and there's a pause before we're ever so slightly surprised to get more of the thought, "in your little brain."
The instrumentation is almost more jarring than the lyrics. It sounds like three or four songs in different styles with different moods were spliced together. There's a jovial, bouncy, optimistic interlude that turns into dissonant hard stops. Things are going to keep on being just okay before the end that's being sensed, the earthquake.
Around the time that I got to know this album, I read a story that happened to be about imminent disaster. The memory of that story and this song will always be tied together in my mind, and thinking about the song like this helps explain why.
Something's a little off, and it's hard to say what. That's what the song is about, and that's the feeling that it cultivates, in both the lyrics and the music.
For starters, "earthquake weather" is deliberate nonsense. Weather and earthquakes are unrelated. But what it suggests is that conditions are ripe for something powerful and destructive to happen. The idea that something powerful and destructive might happen soon comes up a few times: "pain and doubts in your little brain," "a rip tide could rip us away," " a void we filled with death." Or, most simply, "something's coming." Something bad, for sure.
And what's behind that? A feeling: "sky is purple," "dogs are howling." Subtle atmospheric signs are ominous and so the narrator expects something bad is coming.
Is it more specific than that? Yes, it's not an earthquake. The narrator and whoever else is on his side have "been drivin' thru a desert looking for a life to call our own." It could be a couple, it could be a band, it could even be a business. Whoever they are, they are looking for something… and it's not working. And it seems like things just might break soon. The relationship will end, or the band will, or whatever. An earthquake.
And not even the best of things can over come it, as the first line starts us off with. Space ships are amazing, but they can't tame a jungle. Something complicated and fraught with peril is too much for best efforts to overcome.
A clever way that the lyrics create this feeling is that complete thoughts dangle off the ends of lines and pick up again after a break. "Pain and doubts" sounds like the end of the line, and there's a pause before we're ever so slightly surprised to get more of the thought, "in your little brain."
The instrumentation is almost more jarring than the lyrics. It sounds like three or four songs in different styles with different moods were spliced together. There's a jovial, bouncy, optimistic interlude that turns into dissonant hard stops. Things are going to keep on being just okay before the end that's being sensed, the earthquake.
Around the time that I got to know this album, I read a story that happened to be about imminent disaster. The memory of that story and this song will always be tied together in my mind, and thinking about the song like this helps explain why.