The Trapeze Swinger

okay, this has been my favorite song for about a year, and I think I've finally figured out what it means. what it means to me, anyway, since the beautiful thing about it is the way it can be read in so many different ways but it never gets any less impactful.

the first verse is fairly straightforward. it's a childhood memory, of playing together and plotting to run away together before they get caught. it's such an old recollection that it's "too removed to mention," in other words, it's both hard to remember and he's not sure if it has very much bearing on where he and she have ended up now.

second verse- I know there's conflicting opinions on who is dead, the boy or the girl. this verse convinces me that it has to be the boy who's dead. he's in Purgatory, or a similar place, and he's striving to make it to Heaven. most of the song is his recollections of his time on earth with the girl, and he's glad to receive news of her from someone who has also died. they've seen the gates of heaven and now he knows that, even in the afterlife, people can't help the urge to leave their mark on things. I believe the graffiti was written by people who got to Heaven's gates but were rejected by St. Peter, so those messages are borne out of anger and frustration. "we'll meet again" suggests that two loved ones have been separated as one person got into heaven and the other did not. "fuck the man" is a frustrated rebellion against God for not letting the person in. "tell my mother not to worry" is a plea for those who did get in to tell her mother that she's okay, despite not getting into paradise. the part about the angels is confusing, but I think that the negative description of them- plus the graffiti- is meant to show that the afterlife is not the paradise he had expected before he died.

3rd verse- another memory, probably teenagers by this time. their relationship was probably evolving from close friendship to something romantic at this point, so he beats himself up for his mistake a lot more than is reasonable. it seems to imply that the girl moved away or they drifted apart somehow, because the season 'returns' and yet she's not there. 'lit up by the city' I doubt is literal; I think it means the city lights remind him of her.

fourth verse- I feel like this is an important one, but it also gets overlooked. through the whole song, he's asking the girl- still alive on earth, without him now- to remember him in a lot of different ways. but I think that he's warning her against remembering him 'mistakenly' and 'in a high tower'- idealizing him in her head to the perfect person who never did anything wrong, like we're prone to do with the dead. he doesn't want her to remember him as up too high, removed from the rest of the world, because he wasn't. the latter half is more graffiti from heaven's gates. "lost and found" suggests more separation, a reflection of his own feelings. "don't look down" -- fairly literal, I think, since heaven was traditionally supposed to be on a bunch of fluffy clouds in the sky. "someone save temptation" -- this phrase is fascinating, but I'm honestly not sure what it means, why temptation would need saving.

5th verse- more memories from a young age, but much less literal and dreamlike, fittingly since they WERE dreaming. I think he may even be imagining what they dreamed about as babies- I take 'rug-burned babies' literally here- and a peaceable nature scene, where men and lions can coexist, is what comes to mind. now, people are indulgent to children, and I think the latter half of the verse is about how people would coddle the girl for good behavior. except I think the "gift" is an idea from the boy as an adult, a thing that would have made a good gift. I think the whole theme of the song, in regards to the "trapeze swinger", is balance. trapeze swingers swing back and forth in between two points, and their position is precarious. they're meant to symbolize people in general, who have to find a balance in their lives, and who are often caught between two places with the inability to fully reach either one- like a trapeze swinger. if someone would have explained this to the girl, it may have made her life easier, but I feel that neither she or the boy learned the lesson until it was too late. since the carnival is literal in the 7th verse, I believe it's real here, too. the gift- the physical one, not the gift of understanding balance- may have simply been taking the girl to the carnival.

sixth verse- god, this is my favourite verse. now, the first three lines are interesting, because they're the opposite of what is expected- he didn't become miserable because all his dreams were crushed, his dreams were ruined because he was miserable. I have to admit I'm not sure what situation that implies. it seems almost like a suggestion to not let yourself get dragged down and to wallow in the negative, because while you're down there, everything you want escapes your reach. the 'dogs' and 'birds' lines seem like more memories from earth, quietly beautiful things that he's lost after dying, while people still living view them as mundane. St. Peter, traditionally the gatekeeper to heaven, stands in front of heaven's walls and admits people out of his book of sins and virtues. so I think "who the hell can see forever", my favourite graffiti of the song, is indeed that- yet another inscription of the walls of heaven, in spray paint, a gritty thing you don't expect to see just outside paradise. I believe it's a remark made in bitterness and wonder, a person frustrated with the limited scope of human beings, the small amount they're really able to see. it might be someone turned away from heaven who was frustrated that he couldn't see into the future, or "forever", and he's regretting a life that wasn't moral enough to get him into heaven. but that seems too literal for me.

7th verse- the last memory. older teenagers now, maybe in their 20s, in a parked car behind a carnival. throughout the song the metaphor of "the trapeze swinger" weaves in and out, and here it's made literal. there's a real carnival with people who are actually swinging on trapezes, and it's a visual to correspond with what the boy has been finding out about life as he grows older. while they're in the car alone, the boy tries to make an advance on her, but she pushes him away and explains that their trapeze act- the balancing of the friendship in childhood with what they feel for each other now- is over. it was wonderful, while it lasted, but she doesn't seem to return the romantic feelings with the same strength he has them in. the carnival ends and the clowns and dogs are going through the parking lot when a rush of anger hits him, frustration that things won't work out the way he wants them to. now, I've always thought the 'element of danger' is probably their sense that something bad was about to happen, maybe even the accident that causes him to die. but the car scene has a young feel, and these lyrics feel more like a middle-aged man, one with maturity- enough time has passed for him to look back on these years clearly. so, instead, I think the 'danger' is the sense that their relationship is splintering.

last verse- he's finally making his last struggle to get into heaven. it's his final plea for the girl to remember him, and he's explaining to her that if he does make it into heaven, he's going to add to the graffiti on the walls. the things he lists are all opposites- opposites that human beings, as "trapeze swingers", are constantly caught between. humans have such struggle finding that balance and knowing how to maintain their lives in a world where things can topple so easily and quickly.

this song is so immensely beautiful that I feel almost bad for taking apart. at the same time, it feels amazing to finally get my thoughts down on how I've interpreted it. overall, I think it's a song about a boy and a girl, who knew each other for all their lives and loved each other more than anyone else. I'm not the kind of person who believes love doesn't count when it doesn't last forever. I don't think theirs did. I think they drifted apart before he died, and that makes it no less beautiful. I think, on a more subtle level, it's a song about people and all the choices they have to make.