Hrm. I haven't heard that it was about his girlfriend. To me, it's about war. I'll try to explain myself, though I might sound like an idiot.
The first verse I see as a metaphor for the companionship of war like described in the song before it. The tangling of the muscle bone and sinew is from being shot. Then it seems to switch to a reference to "a limb" being humanity, so to say "we are boung by symmetry. Whatever differences our lives (as people) have been, we together make a limb" refers to how we're all human and it's silly how we destory eachother like we do.
The second verse makes me think of the feelings that I get to never know an interest family member that I never knew. I have several of them, and I see pictures of them and you want to know them because they too are part of who you are.
The third verse is about a "company" in the armed services or what-have you "the boys who loved you," since we used to refer to men in the army like that, such as "bring our boys home." It talks about how they became part of who he was and he felt a sense of comradery with them (which appears in The Soldiering Life as well) and how they still exist in his heart.
I guess it's not so much about war, but about pretty much what the above person said.
Hrm. I haven't heard that it was about his girlfriend. To me, it's about war. I'll try to explain myself, though I might sound like an idiot.
The first verse I see as a metaphor for the companionship of war like described in the song before it. The tangling of the muscle bone and sinew is from being shot. Then it seems to switch to a reference to "a limb" being humanity, so to say "we are boung by symmetry. Whatever differences our lives (as people) have been, we together make a limb" refers to how we're all human and it's silly how we destory eachother like we do.
The second verse makes me think of the feelings that I get to never know an interest family member that I never knew. I have several of them, and I see pictures of them and you want to know them because they too are part of who you are.
The third verse is about a "company" in the armed services or what-have you "the boys who loved you," since we used to refer to men in the army like that, such as "bring our boys home." It talks about how they became part of who he was and he felt a sense of comradery with them (which appears in The Soldiering Life as well) and how they still exist in his heart.
I guess it's not so much about war, but about pretty much what the above person said.