To me, this is about getting over bad suicidal thoughts, possibly because of a relationship that she just broke up from or just because she's trying to control everything and finding it out of her control. It wouldn't surprise me that she has a song about getting over depression, just look at The House That Pain Built and What Do You Hear In These Sounds? for other examples of this theme in her life. In her early twenties Dar was diagnoised with clinical depression and credits her recovery for the emotional depth a lot of her songs carry.
In the last part of the song, she's beginning to realize that there are more mysteries in life for her to find out. Though she's not exactly convinced at first (And when I chose to live/There was no joy - it's just a line I crossed/It wasn't worth the pain my death would cost/So I was not lost or found), she has a place in life and life did choose her.
Now she can see the beauty of her life for what it is, with the bad and the good mixed together.
Interviewer: Some of the imagery in the song is so powerful. You talk about a winter machine that you keep going through while everyone else is spring bound. Is that what the feeling was like?
Dar: Yeah. It just kept on seeming like people could have a hard time and then get over it. I remember I, on one of the worst night, and again this is such a melodramatic sounding thing, but I remember I thought 'maybe I should just end this'. And I remember I started to write a will and I realized I didn't have enough, as I describe in the song, I didn't have enough things to give away to justify the fact that it would be so painful for people. Just the fact of my dying would be, I knew, hard. So I thought 'Okay, well I guess that means I'm going to live and maybe I should go talk to somebody'. I went to go talk to a friend of mine to finally sort of say 'this is what I'm going through'. She came out of her room in tears, grabbed my hand and said 'Your just in time!' She had just gotten into a big fight with her boyfriend and I just thought, there's just something so alive and colorful. She'd gotten into a fight, she'd told him how she felt, she stuck up for herself, she yelled, she screamed. He yelled, he screamed. She's in tears.. she just seemed to be living in color. Where as I felt frozen, as if I wasn't even daring to present enough of my real self, if that was even there, to engage in that dramatic way.
Interviewer: Have you had any relapses or moments where you felt like you were in that level of depression or level of sadness?
Dar: No. It turns out that I didn't. Depression was definitely a threat and I remember thinking 'uh oh, I'm depressed'. Then I would just see something. I would see a beautiful branch backlit by the sunlight or I would see a river or a kid smiling in a carraige at the supermarket and I felt myself getting very emotional. I thought, 'My Goodness, this is so weird. I'm not going to the deepest darkest place. I'm going to sadness that finds relief in the beauty of the world'.
I think you're both right.
To me, this is about getting over bad suicidal thoughts, possibly because of a relationship that she just broke up from or just because she's trying to control everything and finding it out of her control. It wouldn't surprise me that she has a song about getting over depression, just look at The House That Pain Built and What Do You Hear In These Sounds? for other examples of this theme in her life. In her early twenties Dar was diagnoised with clinical depression and credits her recovery for the emotional depth a lot of her songs carry.
In the last part of the song, she's beginning to realize that there are more mysteries in life for her to find out. Though she's not exactly convinced at first (And when I chose to live/There was no joy - it's just a line I crossed/It wasn't worth the pain my death would cost/So I was not lost or found), she has a place in life and life did choose her.
Now she can see the beauty of her life for what it is, with the bad and the good mixed together.
Interviewer: Some of the imagery in the song is so powerful. You talk about a winter machine that you keep going through while everyone else is spring bound. Is that what the feeling was like?
Dar: Yeah. It just kept on seeming like people could have a hard time and then get over it. I remember I, on one of the worst night, and again this is such a melodramatic sounding thing, but I remember I thought 'maybe I should just end this'. And I remember I started to write a will and I realized I didn't have enough, as I describe in the song, I didn't have enough things to give away to justify the fact that it would be so painful for people. Just the fact of my dying would be, I knew, hard. So I thought 'Okay, well I guess that means I'm going to live and maybe I should go talk to somebody'. I went to go talk to a friend of mine to finally sort of say 'this is what I'm going through'. She came out of her room in tears, grabbed my hand and said 'Your just in time!' She had just gotten into a big fight with her boyfriend and I just thought, there's just something so alive and colorful. She'd gotten into a fight, she'd told him how she felt, she stuck up for herself, she yelled, she screamed. He yelled, he screamed. She's in tears.. she just seemed to be living in color. Where as I felt frozen, as if I wasn't even daring to present enough of my real self, if that was even there, to engage in that dramatic way.
Interviewer: Have you had any relapses or moments where you felt like you were in that level of depression or level of sadness?
Dar: No. It turns out that I didn't. Depression was definitely a threat and I remember thinking 'uh oh, I'm depressed'. Then I would just see something. I would see a beautiful branch backlit by the sunlight or I would see a river or a kid smiling in a carraige at the supermarket and I felt myself getting very emotional. I thought, 'My Goodness, this is so weird. I'm not going to the deepest darkest place. I'm going to sadness that finds relief in the beauty of the world'.