anonymous September 24th, 2006 08:29PM  
This song is about a person choosing to follow her dream but giving up being with the person she loves (in this case, it's a musician choosing the life of music/touring/fame over her chance for love, but the song could be interpreted more generally about giving up love to follow a dream).

The first verse describes the moment she made her decision: she was supposed to meet her love at a restaurant, but she stood outside and looked at the empty chair and chose not to go inside: "I choose most of your life goes on without me." she feels torn by this difficult decision and fears that she might "reap the praise of strangers and end up on [her] own." in other words, she will receive the glory of being a musician/singer, but what if she ends up alone in the end? "all I've sown was a song, maybe I was wrong." the tension between these two choices and whether she made the right decision is what drives the beauty and tender sadness of the lyrics.

The second verse is about how she wishes for certainty in her life and wants to know how things will unfold, but that is the one thing she cannot have. This verse is also her memories of the person she left behind to follow her dream. She recalls being with the person and talking. She also recalls being alone and how she can figure things out better that way: "I used to lie like that alone out on the driveway. I was trying to read the greek upon the stars, the alphabet of feeling." she felt a calling in that moment to be a musician/songwriter and to follow her dream. This calling said, "if joy, then pain." she realizes it probably will not be possible to stay with her lover and have access to the reservoirs of feeling and language she has when she is alone. Years later, she feels the exact same calling: "the sound of the voice these years later is still the same."

fittingly, the final verse begins with "I am alone." she is alone in a hotel room. She is trying to write a song. She is "working through the grammar of her fears." writing songs is her "study." she writes songs best and has a bigger reservoir of feeling and language when she is alone. But this is what hurts the most: "mercy, what I won't give to have the things that mean the most not to mean the things I miss." she loves her former life and especially the love she left behind, but she realizes she can write about these things best from afar. Her choice remains the same after all these years: the language or the kiss. She chose the language, which symbolizes her role as a musician/songwriter and her ability to bring depth of emotion and clarity of thought and feeling to her fans and listeners. She left behind the kiss, which symbolizes what she could have had in a lover, intimacy and closeness with a partner but she would have had to give up the language. She remains torn about the decision, but she can never go back and she will always have to live with that decision.

anonymous September 1st, 2007 11:06PM  
I don't think this is a love song, nor is it about a person who she was in love with. The song is her lamentation on the existential life she lives. I think it is inspired by her father, who was a minister and raised her to be religious. As an existentialist, she has thrown away all the comfort she had as a child. The first verse is not about a meeting with a lover, but rather a depiction of the simple, safe family life that she could have lived in. She cannot, however, live life wearing such a blindfold, so she leaves the comfort of religion to find meaning in life.

The sceond verse is her father's voice, trying to convince her that leaving the small family at the table will only give her pain... There is nothing out there that can fulfill her. She then makes it clear that she has no choice in the matter, it has been written into her life that she will have to search for her own questions

The final verse is the cinch-pin of the song. Her life of thought and reflection has left her alone and even though she has spent ages in self-inspection, she is still only beginning. The last lines, in my opinion, make it clear that her struggle is internal:

'To have the things that mean the most not to mean the things I miss': The whole point of existentialism is to figure out through your own soul the meaning of right and wrong. She wants to make sure she gets the most important parts right, but this is so hard to do that she would give anything to just find which way is up.

'Unforgiving': My favorite word of the song (just listen to how they say it) makes so clear the finality, the enormity, the fear of such a huge decision; the choice is the most important choice in life and there is no borderline between the black and white, no going back

'The language or the kiss': At last! The meaning of the song! Do you choose to follow what has been before you, or do you follow your own heart

I find this song abhorantly depressing because Emily Sailiers has clearly spent more time in interspection than I have, and she still sees no end to it all

anonymous March 7th, 2008 10:06AM  
This song has impacted me on a personal level.

I like to think of this song as by someone who wishes not to be a part of a bigoted family. I myself have written in my journal from a hotel room, about not feeling welcome to sleep under the same roof. Earlier in life, I was in a heterosexual marriage, reaping the praise of the "strangers" that came to the wedding. I am now openly gay, and my family isn't accepting my 7 year relationship with my partner as a marriage.

The debate on the language or word "Marriage" rages on in America. But what is more important? People like James Dobson and George Bush letting gays and lesbians have the language of "marriage?" Unforgiving, my choice is the kiss. But having the language would be nice...

While I don't think this is exactly what Emily had in mind, this song sure has helped me process my own situation, and that is the beauty of poetry.