This song strikes me as much less fantastical in meaning than it is in words... I think it's about that void you fall into when you're no longer a kid but you don't feel like an adult, and how the narrator (most probably meant to actually be Joanna) and her different friends are dealing with it. It doesn't have a message as much as paints a picture of that midway point in life, and feeling confined by the emotions it comes with.
The narrator herself seems to be feeling depressed, without direction ("I do not know my own way to the sea"), uninspired ("I find myself knowing the things that I knew"), and negative about her place in life (the sea coming to her representing just letting things happen, along with the allusion to things happening in waves). With her reference to embarcadero I picture her on a train in San Francisco late at night (haha), over thinking to the point of feeling paralyzed.
Svetlana doesn't sound too positive either. Jamie on the other hand seems to have something planned, goals in life (marching on, nowhere near through). Gabriel seems to be in a similar place as the narrator but embraces his existentialism (wears it as a hat) and uses it as his direction for life, takes comfort in it.
The fourth stanza sort of paints of picture of how all of these characters spend their time, marveling at words (possibly stoned? or maybe they just really like words), watching birds, sort of existential activities as it is. It just helps to tie together an image of what each character has is dealing with and how they approach it differently. The last stanza also helps to complete the picture of where things will go, while still leaving it open enough to whatever may come (yet not in a terribly hopeful way).
This song strikes me as much less fantastical in meaning than it is in words... I think it's about that void you fall into when you're no longer a kid but you don't feel like an adult, and how the narrator (most probably meant to actually be Joanna) and her different friends are dealing with it. It doesn't have a message as much as paints a picture of that midway point in life, and feeling confined by the emotions it comes with.
The narrator herself seems to be feeling depressed, without direction ("I do not know my own way to the sea"), uninspired ("I find myself knowing the things that I knew"), and negative about her place in life (the sea coming to her representing just letting things happen, along with the allusion to things happening in waves). With her reference to embarcadero I picture her on a train in San Francisco late at night (haha), over thinking to the point of feeling paralyzed.
Svetlana doesn't sound too positive either. Jamie on the other hand seems to have something planned, goals in life (marching on, nowhere near through). Gabriel seems to be in a similar place as the narrator but embraces his existentialism (wears it as a hat) and uses it as his direction for life, takes comfort in it.
The fourth stanza sort of paints of picture of how all of these characters spend their time, marveling at words (possibly stoned? or maybe they just really like words), watching birds, sort of existential activities as it is. It just helps to tie together an image of what each character has is dealing with and how they approach it differently. The last stanza also helps to complete the picture of where things will go, while still leaving it open enough to whatever may come (yet not in a terribly hopeful way).