Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
When our mouths are filled with uninvited tongues of others
And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers
Milk that sours is promptly spat
Light will fill our eyes like cats
And they shall enter from the back
With spears and scepters and squirming sacks
Scribs and tangles between their ears
Faceless scrumbled charcoal smears
Through the coppice and the chaparral
The thickets thick with mold
The bracken and the brier
Catchweed into the fold
When our mouths are filled with uninvited tongues of others
And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers
Milk that sours is promptly spat
Light will fill our eyes like cats
Light will fill our eyes like cats
Cataracts
And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers
Milk that sours is promptly spat
Light will fill our eyes like cats
And they shall enter from the back
With spears and scepters and squirming sacks
Scribs and tangles between their ears
Faceless scrumbled charcoal smears
Through the coppice and the chaparral
The thickets thick with mold
The bracken and the brier
Catchweed into the fold
When our mouths are filled with uninvited tongues of others
And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers
Milk that sours is promptly spat
Light will fill our eyes like cats
Light will fill our eyes like cats
Cataracts
Lyrics submitted by blisse
Track duration: 03:12
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!
I was wondering if in fact this song is not partly about dying?
"when our mouths are filled with uninvited tongues of others" (worms/beetles,crows perhaps, I get stong imagery of flesh being eaten from inside)
"And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers" (unrequited = unresponsive perhaps? Due to deathly absence?)
"Milk that sours is promptly spat
Light will fill our eyes like cats" (An after death type thing? filled with light??)
and on the final lines:
"Light will fill our eyes like cats..
Cataracts" (a reversal or change of meaning here possibly from 'radiant light' to 'light in colour'- 'light' becoming a the white veil of death that appears in the eye like cataracts when someone is dead)
just a few thoughts...hope they are of interest.
I must say i find the comments about being 'conquered by another culture' made by Tru_Shard both offensive and highly unlikely - not to mention zenophobic.
Also i find the imagery of the other verses in this song absolutely stupendous.
Andrew Bird I HATE YOU!!!!
Since people see the dark as an dangerous thing, they might act out of fear. Fight.
Some will try to hurt you and deceive you, while others have their own agendas.
The cat is a creature who travels in the dark with grace and stealth.
When a light is before them, their eyes glow. Light flows outward.
I do think that the word cataracts is meant both ways. Clouded eyes and waterfalls.
Maybe since he is seeing the world through "blurry vision"(doesn't see what others see), it acts as an aid when he sees an answer. Illumination.
And they shall enter from the back
With spears and scepters and squirming sacks
Scribs and tangles between their ears
Faceless scrumbled charcoal smears
He makes up so many words, it's hard to tell if there is meaning in the words or not. Maybe it's all about the sound of them, not the meaning. Except for in odd obscure urban slang, the words 'scribs' and 'scrumbled' have no real meaning. ('Scrumbled' has a couple of sexual meanings according to the slang dictionary, which could support my feeling of the sexual nature of this verse - but probably this is a coincidence).
Maybe I'm just in a special frame of mind at the moment, but actually, alot of these lyrics could have sexual connotations (tongues of others, the sour milk that's spat might not be milk at all, [yeah, I know my mind is in the gutter], the light from the eyes and the cataracts could be about the dazed vision during coupling or how people's eyes light up when they look upon their loved ones, or even to how love is blind and when in love we see the other person as if through a veil - or cataracts)
There are also so many nature references and weeds and plants named: coppice, chaparral, thickets, mold, bracken, brier, catchweed. I wonder if this has any greater significance?
I'd love to know what others think of my wild imaginings here.
I thought the cataracts part was about how being involved physically with others too often or without whole-hardheartedness could make someone or, what it seems like his fear is, everyone, blinded to the actual feeling of love.
Maybe the references to plants are there to describe wildness. All of the plants mentioned grow quickly and obnoxiously.
As for, "milk that sours is promptly spat..." I totally agree. I'm always asking, "How on earth can so few people think of more interesting songs to write about sex?"
Leave it to Andrew Bird.
When our mouths are filled with uninvited tongues of others- this suggests a kind of intrusion, possibly an intrusion of ideas like discussed by others above
And the strays are pining for their unrequited mothers- intro to the image of cats who, in a kind of antithesis to the above statement, are seeking some kind of connection or "intrusion"- they are inviting
Milk that sours is promptly spat- we all know that cats are intimately connected with milk
Light will fill our eyes like cats- perhaps the most interesting line since cats, unlike humans, see better in the dark and more clearly in the light
Cataracts- thus the blurriness of a cataract is explained by the difficulty a cat has seeing when its eyes are "filled with light"
this makes for an interesting simile between cat's vision and human vision- perhaps he is suggesting the more we know, the less we know?
Through the coppice and the chaparral
The thickets thick with mold
The bracken and the brier
Catchweed into the fold
those lines sound amazing
I definitely agree with both tru_shard and Quisquilloso, that this is about a corrupting invasion by...the dominant culture, maybe, but I also like to think that this song is actually a piece of traditional feline mythos. Like, there are bands of feral cats that roam around that sing this song to mourn the loss of their fellows to human influence.
I agree mostly with Quisquilloso. It's the idea of having others place thoughts and ideas into your head and when you realize they are sour you spit them out and your eyes are then filled with the light, that you can see for your self once you can find your way out of the various "shrubberies" that block your way.
I have no idea if that made any sense to anybody to me. But that's my musing.