Just a starting point, this was initially a song by Martin Dosh. It appears on his album Wolves and Wishes as "First Impossible." (Same kind of deal with Simple X on Armchair Apocrypha)
As for the meaning of this song, I had no clue until I read the (amazing) article about Andrew Bird in The New York Times Magazine. It says that this song is a break-up song. Andrew had recently broken up with a significant other when he wrote it. I suppose we can assume the "war" is the mess that was the end of the relationship. The rest of the lines fall into place fairly easily given the break-up context.
The article also mentions the source of the title: After the relationship was over, Andrew was unhappy and in a "robot" like state. However, when he heard a beautiful song, he no longer felt like a robot, but a ghost. The article doesn't mention Dosh's infuence on the song, but it fits perfectly - Andrew was in a "robot-like" state, and heard Dosh's song "First Impossible" and it eradicated him of that feeling, leaving him to feel like a ghost.
Just a starting point, this was initially a song by Martin Dosh. It appears on his album Wolves and Wishes as "First Impossible." (Same kind of deal with Simple X on Armchair Apocrypha)
As for the meaning of this song, I had no clue until I read the (amazing) article about Andrew Bird in The New York Times Magazine. It says that this song is a break-up song. Andrew had recently broken up with a significant other when he wrote it. I suppose we can assume the "war" is the mess that was the end of the relationship. The rest of the lines fall into place fairly easily given the break-up context.
The article also mentions the source of the title: After the relationship was over, Andrew was unhappy and in a "robot" like state. However, when he heard a beautiful song, he no longer felt like a robot, but a ghost. The article doesn't mention Dosh's infuence on the song, but it fits perfectly - Andrew was in a "robot-like" state, and heard Dosh's song "First Impossible" and it eradicated him of that feeling, leaving him to feel like a ghost.