I've always thought it was about the passage of time and how it changes things. When you think about it, there are a lot of opposite lines placed next to each other in this song (I'm never alone/I'm alone all the time, now you're here/now you're away, etc.). I think the narrator of the song wants time to stop so they can slow down and feel that the world is dependable for once. But there's also a sense that it's going to be ok, because if generations of people have gone through life, then you can do it too.
I think I actually know how the chemical glycerine might fit in. Glycerine itself absorbs water from the surrounding environment, and it can be made in to nitroglycerin, which is used in both explosives and heart medication. So we have something that absorbs, combusts, and fixes the heart. Or something with different effects. Or something that can either heal or destroy.
I think it ends on a sort of sad note, where in the end, the person loses the abiltiy to connect with others and lives for their nostagia and old memories ("I could not kiss, just regress), and they know that they need people more than ever to bring them out of it, but they accept that, in the end, their inability to cope with time/change/aging will overtake them and destroy them.
(Which is sort of scary for me, because I sometimes feel like that could happen to me, since I'm afraid of change and the passage of time and tend to brand certain periods of my life as my Halcyon days while feeling like the present just gets more and more confusing and unpleasant.)
I've always thought it was about the passage of time and how it changes things. When you think about it, there are a lot of opposite lines placed next to each other in this song (I'm never alone/I'm alone all the time, now you're here/now you're away, etc.). I think the narrator of the song wants time to stop so they can slow down and feel that the world is dependable for once. But there's also a sense that it's going to be ok, because if generations of people have gone through life, then you can do it too.
I think I actually know how the chemical glycerine might fit in. Glycerine itself absorbs water from the surrounding environment, and it can be made in to nitroglycerin, which is used in both explosives and heart medication. So we have something that absorbs, combusts, and fixes the heart. Or something with different effects. Or something that can either heal or destroy.
I think it ends on a sort of sad note, where in the end, the person loses the abiltiy to connect with others and lives for their nostagia and old memories ("I could not kiss, just regress), and they know that they need people more than ever to bring them out of it, but they accept that, in the end, their inability to cope with time/change/aging will overtake them and destroy them.
(Which is sort of scary for me, because I sometimes feel like that could happen to me, since I'm afraid of change and the passage of time and tend to brand certain periods of my life as my Halcyon days while feeling like the present just gets more and more confusing and unpleasant.)