this is the first song from frou frou that i heard, which led to my love affair with immi's music, and it remains my favorite of hers from frou frou even after all of this time. I love how fresh her voice is in this song...especially during the "people concertina..." portion.
as for the meaning, I think it's about the act of loving["lung of love" implying that when you love someone, you're "breathing" love] being tiring["breathless"], and all of the foolish things people say behind her back["tongue of fool"] cover her in hostility["lap me in enmity"]...either their hostility, or the lies cause her to be hostile in reply... or both.
as for the thing about lies, 4 walled makes me think of a home, and a hessian is german mercenary in the british army in the US... so a lie close to home[to do with love, the fools] and it's being kept by someone sneaking around. she's viewing this "hessian" and thinking "oh, if only I could have seen the future and the fact these lies were going on, I could have saved her from being burned[heartbroken] by this person."
"and I'm motioning still/they stand inside me/the moments until the one I leave" to me means she's finding it hard to walk away from the situation, probably due to the "cindered" girl getting away from both her and whoever screwed her over. the whole "colourless..." bit says to me "in my numbness, I try to give her love, but of course, as soon as I try, everything blows up in my face again, and everyone who tries to comfort me about it is too disconnected from me to really give a damn or understand at all."
as for the "people concertina" bit, it sounds to me like people she knows gather around her over this whole ordeal, chattering to her about what's been going on, because they can see in her face she's playing out all of the events back in her mind over and over again, vividly reliving it all, unable to escape her memories.
so basically, this song is about loving somebody, and watching that person be destroyed by the lies of others, or else the lie of a certain person, then the gossip starts, and she tries to comfort that girl, but fails...the girl leaves, and she's stuck reliving the memories. perhaps the girl the narrator is singing about is a love interest, best friend, or even herself.
this is the first song from frou frou that i heard, which led to my love affair with immi's music, and it remains my favorite of hers from frou frou even after all of this time. I love how fresh her voice is in this song...especially during the "people concertina..." portion.
as for the meaning, I think it's about the act of loving["lung of love" implying that when you love someone, you're "breathing" love] being tiring["breathless"], and all of the foolish things people say behind her back["tongue of fool"] cover her in hostility["lap me in enmity"]...either their hostility, or the lies cause her to be hostile in reply... or both.
as for the thing about lies, 4 walled makes me think of a home, and a hessian is german mercenary in the british army in the US... so a lie close to home[to do with love, the fools] and it's being kept by someone sneaking around. she's viewing this "hessian" and thinking "oh, if only I could have seen the future and the fact these lies were going on, I could have saved her from being burned[heartbroken] by this person."
"and I'm motioning still/they stand inside me/the moments until the one I leave" to me means she's finding it hard to walk away from the situation, probably due to the "cindered" girl getting away from both her and whoever screwed her over. the whole "colourless..." bit says to me "in my numbness, I try to give her love, but of course, as soon as I try, everything blows up in my face again, and everyone who tries to comfort me about it is too disconnected from me to really give a damn or understand at all."
as for the "people concertina" bit, it sounds to me like people she knows gather around her over this whole ordeal, chattering to her about what's been going on, because they can see in her face she's playing out all of the events back in her mind over and over again, vividly reliving it all, unable to escape her memories.
so basically, this song is about loving somebody, and watching that person be destroyed by the lies of others, or else the lie of a certain person, then the gossip starts, and she tries to comfort that girl, but fails...the girl leaves, and she's stuck reliving the memories. perhaps the girl the narrator is singing about is a love interest, best friend, or even herself.