I think this is about the parting of two people who are very close. The speaker is shattered by the parting but it is out of her hands. As the second person sleeps in the airport terminal the speaker can do nothing but stay awake thinking about the future, and eventually the inevitable happens and "she" has to leave.

I feel as though this is the strange feeling you get just before you're about to part with someone for a very long, or for an open-ended time, and you feel as though you know them more now than you've ever known them before. As if suddenly you're finally connecting, even though there's nothing real to say.
So you can get frustrated with the casualness of the situation, or you can convince yourself of deeper meaning in everything that they do.

and what's really better?

Vienna has said that this song conveys "a love story told in reverse," and also that it was inspired by the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, haha!

I think the song made more sense to me personally before I started trying to piece it together backwards. I don't really understand -- if you reverse the verses, the story actually starts off with the couple feeling like they don't know one another anymore.

Regardless, it's absolutely one of my favorite love songs ever.

i think you sort of missed what she meant by a love story in reverse... a normal love story would be that they met in an airport, they sit together, he hesitates, blah blah, they end up in a beautiful moment together after their love for one another is realized. That's how i took it.

I thought of it as two people who used to be in love, and after breaking up a while ago, the meet, and the speaker is wondering if they will reconnect. In the end of the song, she kind of pulls the rug out from under him, by going "Yeah, I guess I'll see you later or whatever", which shows she may not be interested in getting back into a relationship.

I love this song, though. It's written very nicely.

Beautiful imagery in this song, which is my favorite from her third album. Every word just seems perfectly placed.

I'm actually afraid of looking too deeply into it, which is not something I usually experience with a song. There's something beautiful and intangible about the emotions expressed here that might hurt too much if I tried too hard. Maybe someday.

In the meantime, bless you, Vienna (from a fellow Stanford CS grad).

When I first heard it, to me it sounded like the topic of the song is an amicable but inevitable breakup. As the couple is parting ways the narrator is falling back in love with her, finding the things about her that made them fit together in the first place ['I never thought I would find her here' never struck me as literal] and trying to reconcile this with the person she's become over time now that they're no longer compatible. Even though the core of the relationship is revealing itself again [at least to the narrator], it's already too late for them. When I read Vienna's remark about the 'love story in reverse', it still sort of made sense to me; it's not so much in reverse as inverted: love grows rather than declines as the relationship comes to an end. It's entirely possible that this isn't what she meant at all, but it's how I hear it [and how I sing/play it].

I'm really surprised that nobody thought of this one.

Disregarding the "love story in reverse" bit. I honestly thought of this as two people, meeting in an airport. Sitting together, one falling asleep on the other, one of them (possibly both of them) and then the other leaving.

And just because it was sung by a woman, my friend and I felt some lesbianic undertones. Which made it more beautiful in our opinion.

This is by far one of my favorites.

I don't think it has lesbian undertone at all - Vienna has her other songs that are sang from male's perspective, and I believe that it's same situation with this one.

First I though this is about two people meeting for first time. Then I though this is about braking up. But I belive now, as someone said, that this is about two people meeting again. No matter what it is actually about, it's very beautiful song, one of my favorites from Vienna! It leavs such amazing feeling in me, it's touching, lyric are magical and music is wonderful! Simply - everything is on it's place!

I think this is like... I've no idea how to describe it. Going from where you are in a relationship and remember what it took to get there... I guess.

Like in the beginning, the man just woke up after a night of... admittedly "Adult-like Activities" and realizes that he just made a mistake... but doesnt care.

I've really been thinking about this one...and I think it's about falling in love with someone else's child. Bear with me. It also makes perfect sense with what someone said about how Vienna called it a "love story in reverse". You're supposed to find the right man, first...and then worry about children. I think the main character of the song found herself falling in love with a child first when she thought it was the last thing she wanted. The child wins her over.

"And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin" - flannel and satin are common material of children's clothes and blankets. Children are also struck by beauty and seem to see right through people to their character in uncanny ways sometimes. That might fit this verse.

"Oh, I swear I don't want this. There's a reason not to want this but I forgot..." - She didn't think she ever wanted children, but suddenly she finds herself enchanted by this child and can't remember her reasons for not wanting one.

"In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew." - Sounds just the way a child would sleep, but the big clue is the next lines:

"And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves.
maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move." - Again, sounds just like a child would sleep and the reaction of the adult holding the child. I've often watched children sleep and have laughed because they can fall asleep in the noisiest places. You hold them and it's the sweetest moment...but you're afraid to move for fear of waking them up. "Dreaming through the noise" is the most beautiful, peaceful, loving way to articulate the moment of holding a sleeping child in your arms in a noisy environment.

After she takes her to the airport and the girl leaves, she feels a huge void and realizes that the girl almost became part of her and now she's not quite sure of who she is anymore in the unbearable loneliness without her: "Who are you?" she repeats several times with other lines about daily activities. I don't know how or why the character of the song came to care for this child...but somehow she became attached and letting go wasn't as easy as she thought.

I just get the feeling this song is more innocent, pure, and beautiful than anyone has imagined.

Okay, I just read up on it and my analysis is totally wrong...I think, but still, it's what I'm always going to think of when I hear it. That's what's cool about songs - everyone has their own interpretation. :-)

So gorgeous... this song makes me cry. I try not to analyze it too much.

And the words, they're everything and nothing.
I want to search for her in the offhand remarks.
Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar?
Who are you, echoing street signs?
Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?

As dresdendoll (props on the name, by the way) put it- innocent, pure, and beautiful.

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The secret to this song is in the one line: "Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?"

She's met an ex-lover by accident somewhere. They've chatted, and the speaker has searched their soul for the person they knew and remember still. But this person is not that - they are a stranger, shrouded by time apart. They're a different person.

And then parting again as quick as it came - see you around. A beautiful moment, so many thoughts and emotions, and then it was over.

One of my favorite songs of all time. What raw emotion and perfect expression of this event. Beautiful.

When I started listening to this song a story came to mind. Now I'm sort of a story writer but so you are probably not agree with this but every time I listen to it this story plays through my mind. Now I get a sense of traveling back and forth through time. It starts out as a young couple in love who are prematurely separated through long distance, such a two high school graduates going to distant colleges or so, but they are unwillingly split apart and the long distance ruins their relationship and eventually lose contact. (that's what I get from the airport terminal). The after they've become successful people they happen upon each other in passing and a sort of spark is rekindled. As they sort of hang out and get reacquainted with each other, they realize they've become different people as they question "Who are you..." and eventually parts ways as just friends because they realize that they weren't meant to be.
But that's just my interpretation as people interpret things differently, as Vienna Teng has commented on the meaning of this song, she obviously intended it for some other interpretation, but others see it other ways

I adore this song so, so much. Because it's a "reverse strip tease", I tried rearranging some of the lines/verses (I took some lines in isolation, sometimes couplets, sometimes entire verses) with the ones at the end of the song put toward the beginning, and this is what I came up with which I think makes the most sense:

"Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..."
Oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound
And the words, they're everything and nothing
I want to search for her in the offhand remarks
Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar?
Who are you, echoing street signs?
Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?
In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew
Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you
And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves
Maybe it means nothing
Maybe it means nothing
Maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move
And I know I don't want this
Oh, I swear I don't want this
There's a reason not to want this but I forgot
But she's looking at me, straight to center
No room at all for any other thought
And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed
"It's so beautiful here," she says, "this moment now,
And this moment, now"

---

For me, then, taking those set of rearranged lyrics, the story moves from a person meeting an ex-lover (or, in the context of the film she based the song off of, a lover who was wiped from his mind), and they strike up a conversation again, basically get to know each other anew. "Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around" - so the relationship has a future. And then slowly they get closer, and he "searches for her", the "stranger in the shell of a lover" (the future lover, with the dark curtains to the lover she's going to be "drawn by the passage of time" - the time which hasn't *passed yet*).

And then - now this is very much my loose interpretation, I'm not sure why exactly I think this, it's just the images the song conjures for me personally - she ends up sleeping over with him at his house/apartment. "Flannel and satin" = pajamas, "my four walls transformed" = the place he lives - the physical representation of his entire life - is transformed entirely by her presence. Because she says it's "so beautiful here"... and then the song "ends" with this wonderful feeling of how time, life, really is, a string of "now"s passing us by and we can never live in the future or in the past. Just "this moment now". I don't know. It's just such a gorgeous, brilliant song, the way the lyrics play with the idea of time and intimacy.

... yeah, I don't know. I ramble too much.

I know there is much proof to deny the theory I am about to release. But I still believe I should.
I follow the song from beginning to end. I will not rearrange the lyrics or take them backwards.
Vienna sang them this way for a reason. I prefer to take things the way they come to me.

I sat in an abandoned building with my girlfriend of the time. We had dated off and on for years...Her
head was leaned on my shoulder. She whispered sweet words, but I was always paranoid of the future...
I didnt want that future without her, but she kept changing. Kept running away without me... I always
took her when she came back to me though...but each time, a little more of her was lost. Until there was
no room for me in her heart, and she left me forever.
And it is her and my story that i believe this song resembles. Letting yourself get caught up by the same
happiness that has trapped you before, knowing that it will not remain. Conscience of the fact that she
is not what she says. Not wanting to get hurt. But so dazzled in the beauty of the little things...the little
things and love.

"It's so beautiful here", she says, "this moment now."
And this moment, now.

-She acted so sweet...her voice...we were together. Her words ring in my head.

And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed.
But she's looking at me, straight to center. No room at all for any other thought.

-Thinking back, I would never have believed that we would end up back together. Everything
always changes when she is here....with me. I cant seem to pull my thoughts away from her.

And I know I don't want this.
Oh, I swear I don't want this.
There's a reason not to want this but I forgot...

-I know how she has hurt me in the past...I dont want that again...I dont want her...I dont want this.
I know I dont want this...but I forgot...I want her.

In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew.
Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you.
And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves.

-watching her sleep, she's with me now. "we're looking for you". I was looking for you. She is comfortable with
me, the way it should be.

Maybe it means nothing...
maybe it means nothing...
maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move.

-Maybe she does not really want it, like I do. Maybe I should not fall for her again. Maybe I shouldnt move,
I wouldnt want to wake her.

And the words, they're everything and nothing.
I want to search for her in the offhand remarks.

-Everything she says, they tell me everything I should already know, but I ignore them...they mean nothing.
I want to find the real her, in her offhand remarks. But I cannot find her....

Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar?
Who are you, echoing street signs?
Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?

-You're so different now. How is it I still love you?

oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound...
"Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..."

-I hear the beauty of her words, before their meaning. Their meaning...so formal.
No emotion or care, we are not what I wanted us to be...But that doesnt mean I dont care.

The sadness of the end of the song is what ties me the most to it. She doesnt want it to end
this way...knowing that there is nothing left. How can she be so comfortable treating me this way?