bobbyjointritual wrote:Does anyone have any idea what this song really means?
My personal interpretation: It's about a mental disorder (probably bipolar or depression) that destroys his life, where the "girl" symbolizes his life and the worm/wound inside him is the mental disorder
At the beginning everything seems beautiful, then he introduces the "worm" in the second verse and urges you not to try to understand it (dont try to get inside), and the girl becomes sick and he can't do anything about "so now i sit and watch the rain." In the last verse it takes control of him but he tries to manage it (now i try to get inside)
I'm probably completely off though. Help?
It's a good topic.
When I listen to this song I imagine that Devin is remembering his childhood in the same way that I remember mine. At the age of thirteen I was stuck in a terrible Catholic school in middle England. During double french class I would spend hours staring out the windows, imagining a better life.
This is what I understand "a world that wasn't small" to mean: daydreams of a happier place. I would construct a romantic place for myself, and more often than not I would set my girl there, "under trees and earth".
Basically the verse refers to a utopian delusion - a perfect place for the dreamer, a place where fear doesn't exist and love is everything. This kind of mental escapism is a powerful traumatic block. It is also damaging.
"As the sun sets in my eyes, I know" Devin knows it is just a daydream, and that he must return to reality. But he does so reluctantly.
"I remember this smell from my dreams except it was sweeter then."
This is the problem. Romantic delusions lead to disillusion when you finally achieve something close to them. Things aren't the way they ought to be, things aren't as beautiful. You aren't sure of yourself. The setting is not a beautiful, warm mountainside.
I think that what Devin considers to be the "worm" or "the oldest wound" is subconscious regret for something he never had. The way he expresses this in the song was heartbreaking for me: thinking, perhaps wrongly, that I knew exactly what he meant.
"Don't try to get inside, these things inside are just things" sums up the song with a simple realisation of the illness, and a warning to those who might attempt to fix it. After all, it is a mental illness.
It could also relate to my continued dalliance with cannabis, which has popped me neatly out of the shell school put me in. I feel both hate and love for the world, and that is something a doctor told me was a result of my "drug use". I disagree. I think that my drug use opened my eyes, exposing far deeper problems created by a broken educational system. If I hadn't woken up to the world around me, I would probably be a robot by now. I mention weed because Devy is or was known to toke it up regularly, and I know he feels a lot of pain. Or, he did.
If I met Devin I might ask him about all this. I might not; after all, he's helped me enough by simply recording such deep music. I don't know.
So many words, which one do you say?
Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:52 pm
