Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
It starts with you
on a mattress in your parents' old room,
clipping your toenails into the room
like the room will fade
and you will move
onto other rooms
and you will go
to other places.
Then the wedding,
Then the woman passed out
in the driver's seat
at the order board at White Castle.
We woke her up and she went
'round to the pick up window
like she knew exactly where she was.
Then I wept
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
"until death separates us,"
loosening the skin on your breastbone,
I painted your nails
and you sleep
while I write all this down.
There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
my dead line Gemini
When we're on different sides of the globe
I thought we'd keep our veins tangled
like a pair of mic cables,
And if there ain't enough slack to reach
that we'd solder them together
and across oceans they'd stretch.
Our faces reflected in separate windshields
and all our body hair pricked up
an elephant eyelash.
Should we be tempted by thief or saint
it seems I leave and you stay
to crawl the cage and curse.
But don't regret the done dirt,
there is no life plan set,
you just swallow the cold
and follow your breath until death.
Now even if the will to sleep persists
I can't 'cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters.
There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
My dead line Gemini.
Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair.
Hair that once sprouted from my own
white wet chalk follicles.
I swallow a coal
and follow my breath
and I did it with the grapefruit soap
thinking of you.
Bathed, shaved, and oiled,
your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming
between the mattress and the layers of bedding
turning in your drug dry sleep.
When I ask you to kiss my pulse
you offer to start the shower.
I want a verb and you give me a noun.
What do you dream up while I tongue you down?
There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
My dead line Gemini.
You know my build.
You know my size.
The degree to which my eyes
are astigmatic.
on a mattress in your parents' old room,
clipping your toenails into the room
like the room will fade
and you will move
onto other rooms
and you will go
to other places.
Then the wedding,
Then the woman passed out
in the driver's seat
at the order board at White Castle.
We woke her up and she went
'round to the pick up window
like she knew exactly where she was.
Then I wept
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
"until death separates us,"
loosening the skin on your breastbone,
I painted your nails
and you sleep
while I write all this down.
There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
my dead line Gemini
When we're on different sides of the globe
I thought we'd keep our veins tangled
like a pair of mic cables,
And if there ain't enough slack to reach
that we'd solder them together
and across oceans they'd stretch.
Our faces reflected in separate windshields
and all our body hair pricked up
an elephant eyelash.
Should we be tempted by thief or saint
it seems I leave and you stay
to crawl the cage and curse.
But don't regret the done dirt,
there is no life plan set,
you just swallow the cold
and follow your breath until death.
Now even if the will to sleep persists
I can't 'cause a harsh cloth, it grazes my blisters.
There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
My dead line Gemini.
Today I fell asleep in a bath of hair.
Hair that once sprouted from my own
white wet chalk follicles.
I swallow a coal
and follow my breath
and I did it with the grapefruit soap
thinking of you.
Bathed, shaved, and oiled,
your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming
between the mattress and the layers of bedding
turning in your drug dry sleep.
When I ask you to kiss my pulse
you offer to start the shower.
I want a verb and you give me a noun.
What do you dream up while I tongue you down?
There was a moth caught in the soapdish
laminated in lye
Will you still remember me well
If I don't get to two-o-o-five?
My dead line Gemini.
You know my build.
You know my size.
The degree to which my eyes
are astigmatic.
Lyrics submitted by walkintothec
Track duration: 05:28
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
"until death separates us".
OH AND does anyone else think this line could be a biblical reference to when jesus wept in the garden before he was crucified? he wept as he was praying to God (his father). the bible explains that the when he died on the cross he was at that time completely alone and separated from his father.
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
"until death separates us".
OH AND does anyone else think this line could be a biblical reference to when jesus wept in the garden before he was crucified? he wept as he was praying to God (his father). the bible explains that the when he died on the cross he was at that time completely alone and separated from his father.
Hair that once sprouted from my own
white wet chalk follicles."
yoni makes a lot of references to hair falling out. also, one of his albums is titled alopecia which is a medical condition in which your hair falls out. that's just something i noticed..hmmm
I'm not going to analyze this too much because I think we will never be able to decipher each and every lyrics and that is kind of the beauty of it, each person can interpret it in the way they want. However, I do want to share the general idea I get from it.
I thinks it is just illustrating one relationship that haunts him throughout a lifetime, one where he feels much more for this girl than she does for him. From the first verse I get that she is just that kind of girl, the one who acts like she doesn't really care about anything and it is all just a stepping stone to the next place she's going. He loves her very much, and is just recalling memories. I think he might subconciously realize it won't last.
Then, they part, and he fools himself into thinking that it meant enough to both of them to last, though it doesn't.
He grows old and still recalls their relationship. He's sees now that she never really cared. I think that
"I asked you to kiss my pulse. you offer to start the shower.
I want a verb and you give me a noun."
Is just showing that she is never really giving him what he asked for, especially when that thing is something really intimate that will involve emotion beyond just enjoying sex.
"What do you dream up while I tongue you down?"
While they're being intimate, her mind is somewhere else.
And then the very, very last stanza shows that they were together so much that she knows him very well, yet still doesn't love him.
"Then I wept
with my face in your night shirt,
trying hard as hell to say
"until death separates us".
...It gives me goosebumps. I've been there. wanting so badly not to know all of it will have to inevitably end.
Loose Record: All the songs on Elephant Eyelash have what feel like are personal touches tucked away inside a lot of surrealist imagery. Which song do you feel is most personal, like you might have bared too much?
Yoni Wolf: Gemini (Birthday Song), probably. She’s coming tonight. (Pauses) Shit.
Loose Record: Really? I always think about that, when you have these deeply confessional songs and there’s one person out there, staring at the radio pissed.
Yoni Wolf: She loves it.
Loose Record: She loves it?
(Yoni nods)
"That song, specifically, has a lot of really straight-up details about my personal life, pretty much straight from my personal life,â€� explains Wolf. "That song’s really like two letters to someone; and that record is a pretty personal record, in general."
One of the persistent themes in Yoni's relationship with his ex-wife is his submissive nature within it... He conveys well the uncontrollable thronging he has for her full love and attention... this is seen in her haphazard toenail clipping (Yoni wouldn't do the same for fear of judgment, aside from hygienic reasons), his weeping into her night shirt, her not kissing his pulse (a nice metaphor for her unwillingness to really work at the relationship herself), the act of tonguing her down, the generally worshipful and pleading nature of the lyrics
There's a lot more to dig into the song, as in any Why? song, but in general it is a meditation on this past failed relationship and his unfortunate role within it... even though the song seems to be written as the relationship nears a conclusion very evident to both parties, Yoni seems to employ a tone not of uncensored depression, but of some healthy coping as well. The last lines are beautiful, a somber resignation that she knows him in an out, she doesn't care enough about prolonging their romance to delve into the plaguing emotional disconnect... there isn't much else to do, this relationship has failed, only option is to move on.
thinking of you" I had interpreted to be masturbating. But a tie to drugs always makes more sense. But a lot of songs could be interpreted that way. Maybe you guys are searching for the references to drugs as I am to the references to sex..