This song portrays love as everlasting. This man is absolutely in love with this woman, yet she wants nothing to do with him. He uses this song to profess his love and explain the undying love he experiences. Imagery is seen through this song through beautiful lines like “I burn down the wall, breath like a shadow.” He wants to get rid of her memory, but he just can’t. She ligners in his life, the shadow of her existence never leaving him. The line “I learned how to speak a forgotten language” is seen again at the end of the poem with a slight change, “I learned how to speak a defeated language.” This change in diction signifies the defeat that the writer feels as he realizes his love for the woman is hopeless. Repeated throughout the song is the line “When anything that's anything becomes nothing that's everything and nothing is the only thing you ever seem to have.” The syntax here parallels to the confusion that the writer feels in regards to his relationship with the woman. At first, it seems like a very complex sentence, and the use of anything, nothing, and everything several times makes the line feel heavy and overbearing. The man loves the woman, but he realizes his own love for her is too much to handle and is completely useless. Figurative language is the main component of this song. “I want to sleep for weeks like a dog at her feet” helps us connect his hopeless and unconditional love to that of a dog. “I fall in the sea but forget how to swim” is symbolic of his attempts to reconcile the love, which of course never works out. He is too attached to this woman to be able to let go, hence the sea dragging him down. All of these impact the meaning of the song, but I feel like the imagery and figutative language help the listeners connect the theme with the most ease. This is a beautiful song that reads almost like a poem. Every time I listen to this song, I am able to come up with scenes that fit the song like a music video.
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