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There are times that walk from you
Like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms
There are things that drift away
Like our endless numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe
In the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves
There are sailing ships that pass
All our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last
And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds
There are things we can't recall
Blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned
There are names across the sea
Only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes
And they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone
Like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms
There are things that drift away
Like our endless numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe
In the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves
There are sailing ships that pass
All our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last
And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds
There are things we can't recall
Blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned
There are names across the sea
Only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes
And they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone
Lyrics submitted by sethbrown
Track duration: 04:01
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"And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her"
"Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon" Summer symbolizing their relationship. The honeymoon the narrator references is his honeymoon with her.
And she wanted children, however she could not have them with the man she fell in love with. So, she left him.
"And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her" She chose to leave him, but of course, he was not over her, and really never gets over her as the song suggests later on.
"Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made" Once again referring to her leaving that "perfect" relationship with the man she loved.
She eventually found someone else.But it turned out that she was the one who was unable to conceive. But she chose not to go back to him.
"And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring" Yeah, she stayed with him, but the love was not the same. She doesn't love him like she loved the narrator.
The references to children in the song are actually references of her bougainvillea flowers.
Summer-"Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms". Her "children" are blooming, parallels to her relationship to the narrator.
Autumn-"Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves" The flowers are are covered in the autumn leaves.
"Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last" The flowers bloom in the spring, but she has to accept that they will soon die.
"Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls" The fragile bougainvillea die in the winter.
I love how with each of these lines, they parallel real children, her want for children. i.e. children playing in the fall leaves or being tucked into their warm blanket in the winter. It all conveys the loneliness and sadness that this woman is feeling because she knows she can never be truly happy.
"But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned
There are names across the sea
Only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes
And they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone" These last verses are just so beautiful. He still loves her, and she still loves him. And all they have left are memories of the past. Yet, she stays with her new husband, because, like all of us, she can't stand to be alone.
Yes, this song does convey the passage of time clearly, but not through the seasons. If that was so, then the seasons would have been in order in the song. The seasons are there to represent her relationship with the narrator and how her life is slowly falling apart. It starts with summer which represents harmony, perfection, and content: her initial relationship with the narrator. Then comes autumn, the season where everything is starting to dry, to wither. It also symbolizes knowledge. This going along with the women realizing she cant have children with the narrator and the withering of their relationship. Then comes spring which represents the beginning of the new relationship with the man she is with now. She has hopes of a family. But soon comes winter, the very end for her. Her "death", so to speak. Everything has fallen apart for her, and so she clings to the man she is with now, "so scared to be alone"
To me, this song is all about dealing with loss and how as much as we'd like to think the days of our lives will go on forever, our lives are a finite timespan.
"There are things that drift away
Like our endless numbered days"
- One of my favorite lines in the song, especially the endless numbered days part. As noted above, we often treat life like it is endless however all of us are 'on the clock' so to speak and do have a continually reducing amount of time left on Earth. Very strange to think about it that way, but absolutely true.
"There are things we can't recall
Blind as night that finds us all"
- The 'night that finds us all' is a reference to death. Death is the final stop of life and it is not possible to avoid; something everyone will at some point experience.
"A baby sleeps in all our bones
So scared to be alone"
- Admit it or not, everyone fears loss. We may put on a strong front but ultimately we fear losing loved ones and being alone in that sense like a child is afraid of being physically alone with nobody else around them.
I've come to realize that because the song struck me at a certain changing point in my life (an end of an era, if you will) when I knew that the past 26 years were gone and never coming back.. and every time I listen to the song my mind goes back to an image of my mother holding me tightly and weeping..
The song might've been born from a certain incident mentioned vaguely in the lyrics..
But truly unbelievable song! Gives me shivers
Credit to cody for also mentioning a preceding song on the album (about his mom/parents) as I haven't heard the album. Still, I question whether it's a son singing about his mom. Early on there's a reference to her burning a yard (alluding to the scorched earth of divorce?) and then late in the song the singer refers to her naked arms and rolling around in ferns as if he and she were the kids in the leaves long ago rather than of her holding hands with her son back then. Of course a mother is very likely to think of her son; but, the intent of the musing seems to be - do ex-wives ever reminisce about and maybe regret leaving ex-husbands? The "What might have been's" of old age, if you will. Considering the use of seasons and alluding to things lost, this song hints at a childhood sweetheart/first husband reflecting on his ex-wife/mother of his kids and her life with another guy.
Then again, maybe I'm just projecting my own aging reflections into the verse. I love metaphors. Tangled webs.
this, as a religeous reference, may be to do with she wants to beleive in a life after death where she can see the man she loved, who may have died.
The song instantly hit me as the narration of a man who was deeply in love with a woman who he is now only remembering again and remembering the times and love that was shared.
He beleives that she remembers him, as there are lyrics to back that up, but she has her own family now and is infinately happy regardless..
Reading commenst of others, it does strike to me that the narrator may have died while being in love with this woman, where she had no choice but to move on eventually, where he found the love of another man, but still feels unfinished in her love with the narrator.
peace brothers