The comments overcomplicate the midge thing -- at times absurdly so. The song, but for the final verse, is a set of images from a relationship that went bad. The narrator wishes it hadn't gone bad and doesn't understand why it went bad. As is typical with such reminiscences, they're jumbled chronologically: the first time he saw her, a scene of comfortable domesticity from well in to the relationship; a scene in which he sees her & wants to impress her (probably before there is a relationship); a romantic scene, probably from early in the relationship, and last the moment that crystalized the relationship. He's admired her since the minute he saw her. She probably knows this and she admires him but he doesn't know that. He has a midge in his eye, it is giving him difficulties, she makes to help but impishly kisses him. The kiss turns into something a bit extraordinary (and something that involves tongues) and was so unexpected he's left breathless and -- well, not quite baffled but something close to it. Not entirely bold enough to admit to himself what has become apparent -- that she likes him too. His joke -- she was removing the midge in the eskimo fashion -- with tongues -- but missed. Got the mouth instead of the eye. No metaphors or hidden meanings anywhere. To read things as metaphors weakens the song immeasurably. I can tell you as someone who's lived the song -- who is listening to the song because I've just surprisingly come across the girl in question again, one who meant more to me than anyone I've ever loved and is again living that last verse. Different images but exactly the same things, the admiring from afar, the surprising realization that she felt the same (triggered by her boldness where I'd never have dared to be); romance, domestic comfort, bafflement at the way it could all fall apart. No symbols,just a powerful mixture of nostalgia; remembered joy, sorrow and unesolvable confusion.
The comments overcomplicate the midge thing -- at times absurdly so. The song, but for the final verse, is a set of images from a relationship that went bad. The narrator wishes it hadn't gone bad and doesn't understand why it went bad. As is typical with such reminiscences, they're jumbled chronologically: the first time he saw her, a scene of comfortable domesticity from well in to the relationship; a scene in which he sees her & wants to impress her (probably before there is a relationship); a romantic scene, probably from early in the relationship, and last the moment that crystalized the relationship. He's admired her since the minute he saw her. She probably knows this and she admires him but he doesn't know that. He has a midge in his eye, it is giving him difficulties, she makes to help but impishly kisses him. The kiss turns into something a bit extraordinary (and something that involves tongues) and was so unexpected he's left breathless and -- well, not quite baffled but something close to it. Not entirely bold enough to admit to himself what has become apparent -- that she likes him too. His joke -- she was removing the midge in the eskimo fashion -- with tongues -- but missed. Got the mouth instead of the eye. No metaphors or hidden meanings anywhere. To read things as metaphors weakens the song immeasurably. I can tell you as someone who's lived the song -- who is listening to the song because I've just surprisingly come across the girl in question again, one who meant more to me than anyone I've ever loved and is again living that last verse. Different images but exactly the same things, the admiring from afar, the surprising realization that she felt the same (triggered by her boldness where I'd never have dared to be); romance, domestic comfort, bafflement at the way it could all fall apart. No symbols,just a powerful mixture of nostalgia; remembered joy, sorrow and unesolvable confusion.