I adore this song so, so much. Because it's a "reverse strip tease", I tried rearranging some of the lines/verses (I took some lines in isolation, sometimes couplets, sometimes entire verses) with the ones at the end of the song put toward the beginning, and this is what I came up with which I think makes the most sense:
"Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..."
Oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound
And the words, they're everything and nothing
I want to search for her in the offhand remarks
Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar?
Who are you, echoing street signs?
Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?
In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew
Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you
And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves
Maybe it means nothing
Maybe it means nothing
Maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move
And I know I don't want this
Oh, I swear I don't want this
There's a reason not to want this but I forgot
But she's looking at me, straight to center
No room at all for any other thought
And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed
"It's so beautiful here," she says, "this moment now,
And this moment, now"
For me, then, taking those set of rearranged lyrics, the story moves from a person meeting an ex-lover (or, in the context of the film she based the song off of, a lover who was wiped from his mind), and they strike up a conversation again, basically get to know each other anew. "Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around" - so the relationship has a future. And then slowly they get closer, and he "searches for her", the "stranger in the shell of a lover" (the future lover, with the dark curtains to the lover she's going to be "drawn by the passage of time" - the time which hasn't passed yet).
And then - now this is very much my loose interpretation, I'm not sure why exactly I think this, it's just the images the song conjures for me personally - she ends up sleeping over with him at his house/apartment. "Flannel and satin" = pajamas, "my four walls transformed" = the place he lives - the physical representation of his entire life - is transformed entirely by her presence. Because she says it's "so beautiful here"... and then the song "ends" with this wonderful feeling of how time, life, really is, a string of "now"s passing us by and we can never live in the future or in the past. Just "this moment now". I don't know. It's just such a gorgeous, brilliant song, the way the lyrics play with the idea of time and intimacy.
I adore this song so, so much. Because it's a "reverse strip tease", I tried rearranging some of the lines/verses (I took some lines in isolation, sometimes couplets, sometimes entire verses) with the ones at the end of the song put toward the beginning, and this is what I came up with which I think makes the most sense:
"Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..." Oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound And the words, they're everything and nothing I want to search for her in the offhand remarks Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar? Who are you, echoing street signs? Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time? In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move And I know I don't want this Oh, I swear I don't want this There's a reason not to want this but I forgot But she's looking at me, straight to center No room at all for any other thought And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed "It's so beautiful here," she says, "this moment now, And this moment, now"
For me, then, taking those set of rearranged lyrics, the story moves from a person meeting an ex-lover (or, in the context of the film she based the song off of, a lover who was wiped from his mind), and they strike up a conversation again, basically get to know each other anew. "Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around" - so the relationship has a future. And then slowly they get closer, and he "searches for her", the "stranger in the shell of a lover" (the future lover, with the dark curtains to the lover she's going to be "drawn by the passage of time" - the time which hasn't passed yet).
And then - now this is very much my loose interpretation, I'm not sure why exactly I think this, it's just the images the song conjures for me personally - she ends up sleeping over with him at his house/apartment. "Flannel and satin" = pajamas, "my four walls transformed" = the place he lives - the physical representation of his entire life - is transformed entirely by her presence. Because she says it's "so beautiful here"... and then the song "ends" with this wonderful feeling of how time, life, really is, a string of "now"s passing us by and we can never live in the future or in the past. Just "this moment now". I don't know. It's just such a gorgeous, brilliant song, the way the lyrics play with the idea of time and intimacy.
... yeah, I don't know. I ramble too much.