¤ milky moon ¤

At first I thought this was also a song about falling, but now it seems to me it's perhaps about a soul returning to the light or to its next incarnation?

As many of the Divers album songs, the very few first seconds, the very beginning of the song is incredibly well done to me. Very Punchy. And the rest is excellent also, of course =)

In my early listens this song seemed to blend into Pin Light and I couldn't really tell them apart. Now I really like it (I prefer it to Pin Light actually). But why is so short! I want it to go on for at least one more verse.

I also really enjoy the various synths at the end.

I have no idea what its about, but I agree CPell that it sounds more like rising up than falling down.

I hope a good live version finds it way online soon!

The line: Not meant for walking, backs bound in twine" makes me think of books, though I have no idea how that would fit in with the rest of the lyrics. I think this is a very enigmatic song.

The rest of that verse seems rather apocalyptic to me...

hmmm. interesting thought about the possible book reference. I had no idea what "backs bound in twine" was about, but your idea sounds plausible to me.

the lyrics in this song seem to be referring to some kind of balance. The opening verse begins with a perspective that is even with the horizon line ("the line of the sea, seceding the coast") then one that looks down ("fine capillaries, glowing with cars") and then up ("the comfort you drew from the light of the stars?"). Later in the song she refers to climbing, followed by diving, again evoking directions of up and down. And then "not angel, not devil, but level, in time" once again refers to a kind of balance.

What is all about? I have no idea. This song has got to be the most abstract on the album. I can't make head nor tails of it (or angels or devils, cars or stars, up nor down)

I've been thinking about this one a lot lately and my current interpretation is that it's about the essence of the narrator's self enduring through rebirth.

The other song that has similar imagery of looking down on the world from a great height is A Pin-Light Bent, which describes a fall from a plane and I think it could be a similar situation described here. Especially thinking about the poem that likely inspired parts of APLB, in which the flight attendant experiences both the terror of falling (so looking down at the roads and cars, the ground that she'd eventually fall on (also the description of the roads as capillaries could refer to a racing pulse due to fear)) and a sort of powerful feeling of flying and being free (looking at the stars, or "at the heavens" as it were; surrendering to a great power).

The bit about climbing on the "rungs of the light" reminds me a bit of the "wide white stairs" of Sawdust & Diamonds, an image which I believe Joanna said in an interview was taken from a dream she had as a kid in which the stairs represented eternity. So I think in this bit the narrator has died and ascended to the plane from which she will eventually be reborn. In death she "severed all strings to everyone and everything" quite literally (though not necessarily voluntarily).

The "silent, constant driver" reads to me a bit like the "ship we may board but not steer" from Waltz of the 101st. It's the force that moves a person through their life to the "end of the line" (death).

In the next bit the narrator has accepted that all of the thoughts and memories from her life will be taken away, but she insists that her heart, or her essential self, won't be taken with them. That whatever form she takes on next, the most important part of her will endure.

The second verse is a lot more abstract so it's a lot harder to interpret than the first verse, but I will note that it returns to the war imagery that's peppered throughout the album. It reminds me of Anecdotes especially, because it's describing natural things with military adjectives ("martial wind" and "clarion rain"), much like the birds in Anecdotes are described as soldiers in a battle (others have mentioned interpretations of Anecdotes involving reincarnation as well). The descriptors of the "soldiers" here are pretty harsh. They can barely walk, they're not fit for battle, they're weak, etc. I'm honestly not too solid on what this bit particularly means, but a guess would be that the soul in the state between bodies is not fit for battle. Each soul needs a body to come into itself (so the souls are not inherently good or evil at this stage; they are all level in their potential and at the whims of what they will be born into later (so the soul and the body it enters theoretically have equal say in how the new life will turn out)).

So the narrator's soul makes it out of this weird sort of purgatory to take shape and be reborn into another body but it seems to carry with it certain ideas and anxieties that have persisted through each rebirth, referred to here as a particular dream. The exchange in the dream is interesting because she refers to "my soul" and "the body" which reinforces the reincarnation imagery: there is one soul, but multiple bodies. And in the dream the body says that soul is free to do what it likes as long as it stays. To me this feeds into the narrator's soul being especially tenacious. In the purgatory from the second verse each soul is equally likely to be an angel or a devil but the narrator refuses to let the process of death and rebirth rob her of her heart. So when she finds her new form, this heart will live on in the new body in spite of any other circumstances that might change it.

In the last moments the narrator's soul rises up out of the world it knew in its last life, where it won't return. I see it as being on its way to its next life, determined to remain the same in essentials in its new world no matter what.

Yes, you more or less captured what I feel the song is about in a very eloquent way! Thank you Claire!
When I was thinking about this song some more after what Headless Caboose wrote I also got the feeling that the word "line(s)" is a key term here: dividing lines, connecting lines (strings, rungs of ladders), lines from books, light as a waveline...