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I was a quick-wit boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere
Have I found you?
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big pill looming
Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream
Have I found you?
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big pill stuck going down
Diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere
Have I found you?
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big pill looming
Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream
Have I found you?
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big pill stuck going down
Lyrics submitted by campfirestring, edited by studaman
Track duration: 04:02
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BTW, love this songs, makes my heart tremble
"And when the cops closed the fair" - Like a kid that has spent all day at a carnival going on rides and playing games, it has to close sometime. So the cops close the fair that was his life. This is some sort of involuntary realization. He didn't welcome it.
"I cut my long baby hair" - is his choice (instead of forgetting and living in his fantasy world) he is going to wake up and accept this reality.
A flightless bird is an oxymoron. What is a bird that can't fly? It is without purpose (so it thinks). When it says "Have I found you?" I think he is recognizing, is this how it feels to be you (you who were once envious of what I had) because he goes on to say "jealous, weeping". Now, "American Mouth" is still an enigma. But the big pill looming is the depression of no purpose and the possibility of suicide hanging in the air.
Okay so now that he brings up "Now I'm a fat house cat" I think he is taking back what he said (that he's like her) because he can see that he is very fortunate compared to what she is feeling. "Nursing my sore blunt tongue" is him regretting what he said/thought. Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks" he's letting all those things that once made him happy slip through the cracks because they don't make him happy anymore.
"Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean Blood of Christ mountain stream" - it could either mean he is fishing/looking for something sacred in his life, something he can care about, or he is regretful of disregarding the sacredness of her life by throwing his petty problems on her when she wasn't strong enough to take it.
After this declaration of who he was and how he's changed, he's wondering (Have I found you?) and asking her if he got her figured out as a "flightless bird, grounded bleeding" "or lost you" (is he too late to be forgiven for having been oblivious to her pain)
"Big pill stuck going down" - I have different ideas as to how this story ends, but I like the idea that it's a cliffhanger. The "big pill" is the open-ended question. And the question is still up in the air, and it's in the moment between him asking and she hasn't answered yet. My other idea is that she was moved by his speech and he did help her by showing that he cares so the "Big pill" (which was her debate on suicide) was stopped in the act. She didn't let herself go through with it, because he made her feel that she wasn't alone and he would help her.
A lot of cute things that came out of this song. I'd like to hear what Iron & Wine have to say about their song:)
I was a quick-wit boy (I was a smart boy)
diving too deep for coins (hoping for too much when I had an affair behind your back)
all of your street light eyes
wide on my plastic toys (but you knew about the affair and your shiny eyes had already been eyeing the old plastic bottle of pills I owned)
then when the cops closed the fair (After you disappeared and the cops gave up on looking for you)
I cut my long baby hair
stle me a dog-eared map
and called for you everywhere (I grabbed a map and went searching for you)
Have I found you? (Have I found you?)
Flightless bird (the girl that refused to leave despite the pain I caused)
Jealous, weeping (jealous over the girl I was with behind your back and crying)
Or lost you? (Or have I already lost you?)
American mouth
Big pill looming (have you fallen prey to a pill-induced suicide?)
Now I'm a fat house cat (Now I'm a lonely man trapped in this world)
Nursing my sore blunt tongue (cursing everthing with my foul mouth)
Watching the warm poison rats
cut through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ, mountain stream (as I watch rats walk through the broken fence and pee on old magazine photos scattered on the floor where there lies a stream of blood)
Have I found you? (Is this really you?)
Flightless bird (the girl that never left me despite being able to?)
Grounded, bleeding (Bleeding on the ground)
Or lost you? (Or did I lose you?)
American mouth (through that sweet mouth)
Big pill, stuck going down (where that big pill got stuck going down.)
OR,
it could be about a boy's race against time to find his lost loved one who happened to be a troubled, broken girl he thought he could save from her self destructive path but the task ended up being to big. And so, she left without a word and took the guy's plastic bottle of pills and ran away. He reported her missing and when the cops gave up, he went out looking for her. Basically, the same interpretation as the first except that he didn't have an affair and she was just troubled, depressed, broken, and when it mentiones that she was "jealous and weeping", that jealousy might not have been due to another girl, but jealous of him because he's not going through what she is. He can live without that internal trauma she has to live with every day.
Basically, the two different interpretations are the same except for those two. I can't really decide, so some days I go with the first, while most other days I go with the second. This song could very well be taken literally and be about fat cats and rats pissing on magazines and it could mean something entirely different than what I think. But personally, that is what I think it is. I stand quite firm with these interpretations because I identify with them and everytime I hear it, it brakes my heart in a healing way.
I was an innocent child who believed he had all the answers.
I was superficial, searching for all the wrong things that I thought would bring happiness.
Everyone wanted a piece of what I believed was really me.
All they really wanted was to benefit from the person I blindly thought myself to be.
When I realized my own delusion of myself, and who I am,
I began to change into the person I truly am, the person I want to be, the person I've always been, but couldn't see through the eyes of my own unawareness.
Confused, I sought a way to make sense of my confusion, my pain.
Desperately, I clung to anything to help confirm who I am. I wanted all this pain to be just in my mind, not real.
Am I the me I think I am?
I don't have that internal strength I need. I'm jealous of blissful ignorance. It is better to not have to deal with my demons. And this is so hard to come to terms with - who I thought I was versus who I really am.
Did I lose myself?
I can lose myself so easily.
All it takes is a crutch to ease this pain.
This pain is endless, my safety exists only when I'm alone in my safe place.
I enable my self-pity.
But can't ignore it forever. I know that I can't forever hide, but the temptation is so inviting to forget the pain away.
The pain always creeps back in.
It ruins everything I know isn't, but want to believe, is true.
I try to forget, so many ways, any way to make me believe
I am masking my hurt away, using a pleasant veil so maybe they will believe. Then maybe I can, too.
Am I the me I think I am?
I don't have the strength to fight it anymore. I'm aware, but the awareness is so painful.
But maybe I can just lose myself, one more temporarily gratifying time.
All it takes is a crutch to ease this pain.
*Admittedly, I haven't yet read all the comments. That said, fair or not since I didn't read all the comments, this is how I "get" this song.
Thank you for that wonderful interpretation.
Insanely relatable.
Either way, the lyrics are not appropriate for Twilight. Liken it to Twilight if you like by saying it's a beautiful song and it works in that scene, but the lyrics do not.
I hate how popular that sad excuse for a book is. Like really, can someone explain to me what makes it amazing? I read the books, and deducted that they were very poorly written & completely unoriginal. That type of work belongs on fanfiction.net not on the bestsellers list.
I can't even listen to this song in public now, I'm too embarrassed to think people would think i only like Iron & Wine because of Twilight.
Why be embarrassed to like something without having to defend it? Who cares what strangers in public think of you? What matters is what you think of yourself.
Iron and Wine, the topic here, is an artist with brilliance balanced by humility and introspection. You're missing out on a lot if you don't open yourself to this - in my humble opinion.
This is not my favorite I&W song, but I hold it it proudly as a classic piece of art. So what if people think I'm a Twilight fan? Never seen any of the movies, I just praise one of my favorite artists I've been fortunate enough to find. Don't iron and whine, just iron and wine...