The singer is looking back on a romance that has ended, probably a youthful one in which they were together for a long time and very dependent on each other. In the first stanza, she leaves him (and is expecting to fly, which he finds laughable). He is hurting, but begins to heal from this loss. He still thinks of the sad way it ended ("ended with a cry") and is not fully recovered ("stumbled", "fumbled"), but he knows that it is over ("knowing it was gone").
Check out the double negative in this line: "If I never lived without you | Now you know I'd die." In other words if he had ended up stuck with her permanently, it would have been the end of him, so it is just as well that it is over. But he still wants her to know that he loved her, even if he was not very good at telling her.
A beautiful, sensitive song, a little mournful and vulnerable, like a lot of Young's ballads. I wonder if this was about Pam Smith, who (I think) was his teen years girlfriend. There is a photo of them together in Young's autobiography.
The singer is looking back on a romance that has ended, probably a youthful one in which they were together for a long time and very dependent on each other. In the first stanza, she leaves him (and is expecting to fly, which he finds laughable). He is hurting, but begins to heal from this loss. He still thinks of the sad way it ended ("ended with a cry") and is not fully recovered ("stumbled", "fumbled"), but he knows that it is over ("knowing it was gone").
Check out the double negative in this line: "If I never lived without you | Now you know I'd die." In other words if he had ended up stuck with her permanently, it would have been the end of him, so it is just as well that it is over. But he still wants her to know that he loved her, even if he was not very good at telling her.
A beautiful, sensitive song, a little mournful and vulnerable, like a lot of Young's ballads. I wonder if this was about Pam Smith, who (I think) was his teen years girlfriend. There is a photo of them together in Young's autobiography.