Two

Joshua 27 is right. "Hopsice" is a concept album about a man who works at a hospital, falls in love with a cancer patient, marries her, and then watches her die. I think the psychological and physical breakdowns described in this song are all a result of the cancer. If you ask me, the entire album is genius.

What I love about this song (and the whole album, for that matter) is how it differs from traditional cancer stories. I've heard so many cancer stories that drip of sadness but in the end they all arrive at something positive: "I found the meaning of life," "I discovered what's really important," "My wife died but she was the love of my life and I was blessed to have the time with her I did," "I'm at peace about what happened," etc. But in this story the overwhelming emotion isn't sadness, it's anger. The cancer patient throws phones at her husband, blames him for her mistakes, and daily threatens to leave him. And the narrator doesn't romanticize his relationship with his wife; he actually lets us in on its dysfunction and admits that they were married hastily and at the disapproval of their friends. There's no redemption in this story at all, and that's what makes it so powerful. I love it!

Just to stop anyone else from sounding pompous and pretentions and FALSE by saying the song is obviously about an eating disorder or a mental disorder I will mention now that the entire album is the story of the songwriter watching his wife die of bone cancer. the weight loss, the 'childhood dreams', even the psychological breaking down are all.... well, you get the point.

Beautiful, such an amazing album. The lyrics in this are fantastic.

Also, there's a prologue printed in the album's liner notes that might be helpful. I'll reprint it here:

Before diving into this, I think some background would be useful. When she was younger, she had nightmares. She had scissor-pain and phantom limbs, and things that kept her nervous through that twelve-year interim. When she fell crossing that street (south of Houston, old Manhattan-land), those nightmares fell from building tops and took her by the hand.

She was brought into those rooms with sliding curtains and shining children's heads. One of the, that boy, was not as lucky as she then. (Years later, he would return to her at night, just when she thought she might have fallen asleep. As she would later describe to me, his face would be up against hers, and she'd be too terrified to speak.)

Now, I won't pretend I understand, because I can't, and now I never will. But something makes her sting, and something makes her want to kill. It made her crawl under that house, and stick her head under the stove...well, my point in all of this is that it's all connected in these complicated nightmares that we wove.

The Antlers are amazing, simply put. Such a well written song.

Actually, by the lead singer himself, this entire album is a metaphor for an emotionally abusive relationship. This album isn't about him falling in love with a girl at a hospital who has cancer, but is entirely a metaphor for the abusive relationship, using the happenings of a cancer patient as metaphors for the abusive aspects of the relationship. Genius lyrics gives some great interpretation behind the songs. Other songs like "Two" show the elements of the actual relationship outside of the hospital concept.

So beautiful and so fucked up. To look on someone you care about so much and know you can't fix or help.

These words make me cry everytime I listen to them. They rip right through you.

wow. i know this is about cancer, but this song relates to me so much.

"But I didn't mind the things you threw, the phones I deflected I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes I just held you in the door-frame through all of the earthquakes"

this definitely reminds me of living with a family member with bipolar disorder.

"Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up Built the gears in your head, now he greases them up And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating "Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating"

and this reminds me of eating disorders, personally. i know people have already said this, but still, this song really hits home.

Keeping the song within the storyline of the album, I think of it as everything that's happened to her from when she first got cancer (it returned when she grew older) up until just before her death.

"You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair Then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying They should have listened, they thought that you were lying"

She got cancer when she was little and "they cut your hair" is the hair loss in the chemotherapy process.

She thought of herself as ugly and developed eating disorders.

"Tell me when you think that we became so unhappy Wearing silver rings with nobody clapping When we moved here together we were so disappointed Sleeping out of tune with our dreams disjointed"

They had a rushed marriage "with nobody clapping" (no one was at their wedding) and afterwards they were reconsidering their marriage.

"It killed me to see you getting always rejected" She tried to get jobs but no one would take her because they knew her cancer was back and they wouldn't take someone with a terminal illness

She was frustrated and angry with the cancer returning instead of upset and accepting death, in a constant "why me?" stage. She can't take out her anger by talking to anyone ("No one's gonna listen, and no one understands") so she has to physically abuse her husband to get it out. He loves her, so he doesn't mind.

"There's no open doors, there's no way to get through" It's a terminal illness, and there's no way she can come out of it alive.

Here it comes in that she has a multiple personality disorder, perhaps as a result of the cancer destroying her emotionally as well as physically, and her entire life is written out in a matter of lines.

"There's two people living in one small room From your two half-families tearing at you Two ways to tell the story (no one worries) Two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry Two people talking inside your brain Two people believing that I'm the one to blame Two different voices coming out of your mouth"

Again, it suggests a rushed marriage, and then a multiple personality disorder. "Two people talking inside your brain" and "Two different voices coming out of your mouth".

It's impossible to deny that it's a brilliant song and a brilliant album, whatever your interpretation.