This song ventures far from where the Decemberists usually go with their songs, which might be part of why it was removed from The Crain Wife. The beautiful slow jam is about the realization of loss and it's represented through the metaphor of the castle made of glass or sand. The castle is like the sense of denial, and how refusing the truth is a way of protecting yourself.
The glass castle shows the distortion of reality from inside the castle. the real world outside the castle, as seen through the window, looks the same as world seen through the glass walls. In this way the glass castle, the rejection of the loss, becomes the same as the reality.
his second image is the sand castle in the waves. The castle is the belief that someone might come back which becomes shattered over and over again be a greater inevitable force. The image of the fingers in the sand soaking in the waves is so clear, but also forms a metaphor.
This song, although originally recorded separately from The Perfect Crime #1, and if you look at it on the Decemberists website you can see they are listed as different tracks, however when it was released through the Starbucks Bonus Tracks, it was grouped together with The Perfect Crime #1, which makes me think that they were not intended to be thought of as two halves of a whole. However, when put together, this song really makes the Perfect Crime #1 look much more sad. It seems more like it's a juvenile attempt at rejecting this same idea of loss. As if it's about stealing "you" back, and then The Day I knew You Would Not Come Back is the realization that it's impossible.
This song ventures far from where the Decemberists usually go with their songs, which might be part of why it was removed from The Crain Wife. The beautiful slow jam is about the realization of loss and it's represented through the metaphor of the castle made of glass or sand. The castle is like the sense of denial, and how refusing the truth is a way of protecting yourself.
The glass castle shows the distortion of reality from inside the castle. the real world outside the castle, as seen through the window, looks the same as world seen through the glass walls. In this way the glass castle, the rejection of the loss, becomes the same as the reality.
his second image is the sand castle in the waves. The castle is the belief that someone might come back which becomes shattered over and over again be a greater inevitable force. The image of the fingers in the sand soaking in the waves is so clear, but also forms a metaphor.
This song, although originally recorded separately from The Perfect Crime #1, and if you look at it on the Decemberists website you can see they are listed as different tracks, however when it was released through the Starbucks Bonus Tracks, it was grouped together with The Perfect Crime #1, which makes me think that they were not intended to be thought of as two halves of a whole. However, when put together, this song really makes the Perfect Crime #1 look much more sad. It seems more like it's a juvenile attempt at rejecting this same idea of loss. As if it's about stealing "you" back, and then The Day I knew You Would Not Come Back is the realization that it's impossible.