Cuckoo Cuckoo

Mortality, and some themes revolving around it. You will most likely witness your mother passing during your own lifetime, I at first thought the first bit was that, her watching as she left her son, but I'm second guessing it to be his perspective.

"How I lost my boy How I lost my boy How I lost my boy How I lost my boy

The king in I died He kept floating past my eyes and singing his songs Life was good now death's all wrong Cause you can't feel a thing No heart flutters in late spring You just drift and pray for sun-kissed golden days"

First bit would be about passing from his younger self in time. He lost the boy in him; haven't thought out how literally it could be called the king in him because I don't yet want to apply that perspective to the whole song, but that's my thought. Either way life being considered positive would make death the opposite, you can't feel a thing, and as you drift towards your end in time you wish you were young again, so it kind of ties within the idea of losing his younger self. Kind of existentialism, you can't go back to where or who you were, time changes permanently.

"And I can't hold what's in my hand Don't do any good to say this isn't what I planned And little kids sliding down the steel park slide Little kids can't play with things that died Sometimes all I want is one favorite song And two to three minutes don't seem so long And where's my mom I want to hold her tight She's so far away from crowded nights"

You can't keep the world, you can't take anything with you, either in the long term sense of ownership of something during life, or when crossing the horizon of death. The little kid lines are cool; could be that he's lamenting his inability to play with kids, as a kid, as that part of him is gone, or that death takes away people that would otherwise play with them. This line also gives a lot to the miscarriage idea, but I'm avoiding that perspective to present my own (not that it isn't applicable). Enjoying a favorite song makes minutes blow by (songs are, in my opinion, a cooler way to measure one's time than conventional measurement like minutes. Doesn't apply to interpretation, just sharing a thought), again playing up that you can't reclaim time. His mom's out of his life the way she was in it when he was a child, she's moving along time, too, at the same distance, which is edging towards the end. "She's so away from crowded nights" could be a reference to her isolation from people at her age, she can't hang out anymore.

"I'm going cuckoo cuckoo We're all going cuckoo cuckoo We're all going"

I like that "we're all going" sounds more like a line than cuckoo cuckoo, which sounds more incomprehensible, because "we're all going" alone would apply to the direction of my interpretation. Going cuckoo is crazy, ya? I guess we all are too. Not a well developed idea on my part.

"I said please stay You can see me, don't go away I can't see the landscape Please describe its amaranthine haze It's odd where I am They're people you're not like them They just look away for rain-quenched golden days"

So yeah, back to the mother idea with this a bit. Please mom, don't go. Describe to me what life looks like closer to the end, what's the view from that end of the timeline? At his age people are looking back on the better times they've had. Maybe she's at the point where she turned around, could turn her back on the past to look ahead and see death full on. Maybe he can't see death yet, he's trying but is too far, is afraid to, or doesn't understand it. Think about a person's timeline, imagine them standing in a desert, walking slowly to the horizon. You could look back and see how far you've traveled, or forward. The haze has cleared for her enough to see the wall, since it's nearer.

"And my tears quench five feet along And I can scream but cannot yawn And people gonna come and people gonna cry We just hope it's worth the age we die Don't try to erase what you have done Put your fingers in a mouth and kiss it if it wants And where's my friend, I want to hold him tight he's so far away from mountain light"

He's been contemplating mortality for around five feet of his desert journey. He can scream out, but can't be bored, he knows he hasn't the time to. The third line is a play off "people gonna come, people gonna go", you're gonna cry when they go, you just got to hope that the suffering of life has been worth experiencing what you love and who you love. I'm getting lazy with literally interpreting the rest of the lines, I can't make them out directly for this. But I get a sense of carpe diem. "Put your fingers in a mouth and kiss it if it wants" Maybe this means clutch onto someone (by the mouth mind you) and kiss them if they want. That and the next line are pretty much to love people as you meet them, your friends might be gone, you'll miss them.

There's my take, thanks if you read it. I love this song.