Lyrics for The Island: Come and See; The Landlord's... as interpreted by Nodima

The Island: Come and See; The Landlord's... Lyrics
Come and See

There's an island hidden in the sound
Lapping currents lay your boat aground
Affix your barb and bayonet
The curlews carve their arabesques
And sorrow fills the silence all around
Come and see

There's a harbor lost within the reeds
A jetty caught in overhanging trees
Among the bones of cormorants
No boot-mark here nor fingerprint
The rivers roll down to a soundless sea
Come and see
Come and see

The tides all come and go
Witnessed by no waking eye
The willows mark the wind
And all we know for sure
Amidst this fading light
We'll not go home again
Come and see
Come and see

In the lowlands, nestled in the heath
A briar-cradle rocks its babe to sleep
Its contents watched by Sycorax
And Patagon in parallax
A foretold rumbling sounds below the deep
Come and see
Come and see

The tides all come and go
Witnessed by no waking eye
The willows mark the wind
And all we know for sure
Amidst this fading light
We'll not go home again
Come and see
Come and see

The Landlord's Daughter

As I was a-ramble
Down by the water
I spied in sable
The landlord's daughter
I produced my pistol, then my saber
Said, "Make no whistle or thou will be murdered!"

She cursed, she shivered
She cried for mercy
"My gold and silver if thou will release me!"

"I'll take no gold, miss, I'll take no silver
But I'll take those sweet lips, and thou will deliver!"

You'll Not Feel the Drowning

I will dress your eyelids
With dimes upon your eyes
Laying close to water
Green your grave will rise
Go to sleep, little ugly
Go to sleep, you little fool
Forty-winking in the belfry
You'll not feel the drowning
You'll not feel the drowning

Forget you once had sweethearts
They've forgotten you
Think you not on parents
They've forgotten too
Go to sleep now, little ugly
Go to sleep now, you little fool
Forty-winking in the belfry
You'll not feel the drowning
You'll not feel the drowning

Go to sleep, little ugly
Go to sleep, little fool
Forty-winking in the belfry
You'll not feel the drowning
You'll not feel the drowning

Hear you now the captain
Heed his sorrowed cry
Weight upon your eyelids
Is dimes laid on your eyes

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toadtws
08-21-2006

Rated 0 
A couple corrections, as of 21 August:

Fix -> Affix
Arab best -> arabesques
the reefs -> the reeds
commerants -> cormorants
It's -> Its
ziggurats -> Sycorax
photo -> foretold
beneath -> below
With this bare waking eye -> Witnessed by no waking eye

Lastly, I don't think the last two lines are a quotation, though I suppose that's debatable.

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toadtws
08-22-2006

Rated 0 
Also, "paragon in paralax" should be "Patagon in parallax"

Oh, and can I just say that I love this song? I think it's my favorite off the album.

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amandapants
08-22-2006

Rated 0 
I think The Decemberists are the only band in the world that can make you feel good when you're singing along to lyrics about rape.
Real sorry if I offended anyone, but it's so true.

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WriterOfFictions
08-25-2006

Rated 0 
^^no, thats one of the truest statements ever said.

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Astfgl
08-28-2006

Rated 0 
I think "nestled in the heat" should be "nestled in the heath."

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JDSalinger
09-07-2006

Rated 0 
"I will dress your eyelids
With dimes upon your eyes" this reminds me of how Greeks (?) put coins on their eyelids when they died so they could pay Charon and get to Hades.

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kowsosoft
09-07-2006

Rated +1 
Pretty sure this series is about William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The Island describes the discovery of Caliban, the son of Sycorax, a witch. The Landlord's Daughter seems like a reference to his attempted rape of Miranda, the daughter of Prospero. You'll Not Feel the Drowning I'm not sure about either, but the description of the subject of the song as a pitiful, ugly fool would also seem to fit as a description of Caliban.

According to wikipedia, Caliban has some of the most eloquent lines of the play, making him a tragic but redeemable character, and this would seem to fit with The Decemberists' tendencies.

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2 Replies
mattmattmattmatt
09-09-2006

Rated 0 
"And all we know for sure", not "though we know for sure"

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Fatallyours
10-06-2006

Rated 0 
jesus christ, these lyrics are very wrong.

"I'll take those sweet lips, and I'll deliver" it should be "I'll take those sweet lips, and thou will deliver"

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caitsith01
10-07-2006

Rated 0 
What kind of band can make 11 minutes fly by like that? Incredible. And who else but the Decemberists can have a pirate jig as the melody line for a whole movement in a song and somehow make it sound cool and not completely twee (the whole "As I was rambled..." bit).

Good pickup on the Tempest. I can't decide if the person being buried at the end is the protagonist, or the victim of the protagonist, now to be buried where no-one will find them.

One complaint - I don't like Colin's use of "thou", and in, "I'll take those sweet lips, and thou will deliver". It just sounds forced.

Edited by mellow_harsher on May 12 2007, at 05:58PM



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little_miss_october
10-08-2006

Rated 0 
Re "landlord's daughter," do a Google search for Alfred Noyes' poem "The Highwayman."

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HoboInABox
10-09-2006

Rated +1 
Jenny sure does rip on the hammond organ..

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Spinky12
10-11-2006

Rated 0 
This is definitely the Tempest, rather watered down though it may be. The description of the island used for the setting of the play, Sycorax being named in the song and play, as well as many other vague references to the play. Landlord's daughter is Caliban "violating" of Miranda. Though I can't remember Caliban's fate in the story, the third part is definitely about him. He was definitely a physically unfortunate looking person...

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GoatboyX2
10-11-2006

Rated 0 
Does nobody hear the heavy Pink Floyd-ness of the opening of "Come and See"? It reeks of "Animals." Which is actually very, very cool.

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TheSFletcher
10-12-2006

Rated 0 
Does anyone else think that "You'll Not Feel the Drowning" is about a woman of wealth that births a physically/mentally challenged baby, and drowns it out of shame?

I feel she is wealthy because of the reference to dimes, but that could be something completly different.


By the way, the Landlord's Daughter is my favorite song on the new album.

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1 Reply
reynardthefox
10-13-2006

Rated 0 
Great song by any standard. While many people will have different takes on the "sound" to my ears it could have been a lost Genesis track circa "Nursery Crime/Foxtrot". I swear I also hear some elements of "Easy Money" by King Crimson in the intro.

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Checkerpig
10-15-2006

Rated 0 
In response to TheSFletcher, I dont think it would have been a baby.

"Forget you once had sweethearts
They've forgotten you
Think you not on parents
They've forgotten too"

It seems to me like it was an older person.

The dimes reference, i'm pretty sure, is reference to paying the ferryman to cross the river styx to Hades, just as JD said up there.

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Portcho
10-16-2006

Rated 0 
I think the lyric is, "The tides will come and go, witness but a waking eye/ The willows mic the wind".

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reynardthefox
10-17-2006

Rated 0 
Re: You'll Not Feel the Drowning - Was reading in Harp magazine that Colin mentioned that this section is not related to the landlord's daugher from the previous segment.

Instead, the lyrics are actually advice older crew members gave young sailors when a ship was foundering in rough seas...that if you just went to sleep that you wouldn't feel yourself drown when the ship went down.

Given this, perhaps the last section relates to the protagonist from part 2. Sailing away from the scene of the crime only to find himself facing death himself?





Given this meaning, the "dimes" are probably just metaphorical vs. physical.

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NightNeverSleeps
10-21-2006

Rated 0 
I see some allusions to The Tempest as well: the attempted "rape" of Miranda by Caliban ("The Landlord's Daughter" - in The Tempest Caliban was Prospero's slave, and Miranda was Prospero's daughter. As well, Prospero asserts control over the island, much like that of a colonizer, and in that sense he can be seen as a "Landlord" of sorts) - and yes, the explicit reference to Sycorax. Other than that though, it all seems pretty ambiguous. Perhaps the song is half inspired by The Tempest and half a product of Meloy's vivid imagination. Though "little ugly, little fool" reflect Caliban's portrayal as an "ignorant savage" in the Tempest (at least from Prospero's descriptions), in the last scene of the play Caliban is actually pardoned after plotting to kill Prospero, so he doesn't drown or die.

I guess this is kind of a useless point after the post above me, but I just thought I would share Caliban's fate in the play for anyone that was curious.

thanks for sharing the info, Reynardthefox - that is really interesting.

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crimmson777
10-27-2006

Rated 0 
It's:

"Go to sleep now little ugly
Go to sleep now little fool"

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OJ Slider
11-04-2006

Rated 0 
"Does nobody hear the heavy Pink Floyd-ness of the opening of "Come and See"? It reeks of "Animals." Which is actually very, very cool."

I actually came here to see if anyone else had commented on that.

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kwanzaa
11-05-2006

Rated 0 
the triplets between the snare drum and the ride cymbal! ahh! so good.

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thegreatcreator
11-08-2006

Rated 0 
"youll not feel the drowning" to me seems to be a bit metaphorical.

i believe that whole section is the protagonist talking about an ACTUAL tempest (heavy storm)...but using it as a metaphor as bringing pain/disruption upon caliban, and telling him as the captains told their crew to go to sleep (little ugly and little fool being caliban) that they will never feel it coming basically.

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mikematyus
11-30-2006

Rated 0 
I feel like I've heard that traditionally when someone died they'd put coins over their eyes, like an old irish tradition or something? wasn't it like in the movie Road to Redemption or whatever...?

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