| Sunset Rubdown – Dragon's Lair Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Okay, so to start off with I should say I feel like this song has a lot of layers and this is the way I personally interpret it although I don't necessarily believe that it was written with this specific meaning in mind, but here goes... I think this song is about ending a relationship and uses fairly violent metaphors to get the emotional struggle across. Ultimately, killing the dragon is ending it all and that's a really powerful way of describing it, like slaying this great beast. The first verse is a callback to Silver Moons, therefore bookending the entire album. If Silver Moons was about growing older, then that makes this the follow up to that anthem and what happens in the aftermath of accepting that it's time to move on. However, immediately the tone is noticeably different. Whereas Silver Moons felt more optimistic about the future and ready to move on, this opener definitely sounds a lot more mournful, but then it does lead on to say, "I'd like to fight the good fight for a couple of years" and the tone changes to something once again more uplifting. "To say the war is over is to say you are a widow". The war is the relationship. If he is killed, then she becomes a widow and the relationship is over. Pretty straight forward. I really love the metaphor of this rs being like a war because it really conveys the passion behind it and that he's really fighting a ferocious battle in order to try to save it, so you really believe that he loves this person. This is then emphasised by the defiant repetition, "You're not a widow yet!" [Thematically breaking my analysis of this as a love song here, I read an interview where Spencer said that "this one's for the critics and their disappointed mothers" was about the state of music criticism today, js. That could lead one to believe that this song is less about a specific relationship and more about his own feelings about SunRub and its future. But hey, to each their own.] "The cupid and the hunter shooting arrows at each other" is about the inner conflict between the desire to follow through with the relationship and choose love (cupid's arrows were never meant to kill, but rather to create love - he has no intention of hunting the hunter, but rather placating him with affection), or to just end the relationship (the hunter is trying to kill cupid, the god of love, desire, etc.). "Ain't no such thing as a saint, ain't no such thing as a sinner" as far as I can tell is just a comment on the false dichotomy of good and evil. "There's a Samson with Delilahs lining up outside the door" is a reference to the biblical story of Samson, whose power lay in his hair and was cut by Delilah, whom he loved, causing him to be captured and blinded, so this, followed by the line "if you are sharpening your scissors, I am sharpening my scissors" leads me to believe this is another metaphor for the termination of their relationship. Therefore, when he sings, "You can take me to the dragon's lair, or you can take me to Rapunzel's windowsill, either way it is time for a bigger kind of kill", he's saying that essentially he has no choice. They either cut the hair or kill the dragon, but these are both metaphors for the end of the relationship. There's something to say, however, for the tonal contrast between a dragon's lair and Ranpunzel's tower, the latter of which holds much greater romantic connotations although he is still there to cut the hair (ergo why they are sharpening their scissors), thereby severing the connection between them. "I see the muscles in your legs from the way you always rise to the occasion of catching things that fall, like the statuettes on pedestals I tend to build too tall" seems like he's admitting that he puts this person on a pedestal and she's always trying to live up to his expectations? The dead leaves could be another reference to Silver Moons ("Confetti floats away like dead leaves in the wagon's wake"). In that line, the simile seems to be pointing out how the parties all lose their glamour once they are over, so this might be acceptance that it's all coming to an end. "Seen from the back of a train,"I rode away from your station" as he's now moving on from this person, towards new horizons, and now has the chance to look back on the relationship. The imagery of the papers, like memoirs of their old conversations, drifting off into oblivion is a very beautiful way of explaining his acquiescence in letting go, the acceptance that all of these memories they shared together are now something that belongs to the past and they can never get them back. Lastly, the line "You're such a champion, I hide behind your sun" seems to be saying that he believes this person is more courageous than him and he respects them for that. So that's how I've always seen it :) This is one of my favourite songs ever. |
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