This song is not entirely about death. It's also about the forgetfulness that comes with it, and the un-comfortability, the grief & loss.
But it's primarily about the beauty that surrounds death, the color in the leaves when the decaying sunlight hits them from the side. It's about the red flag, the reminder that autumn gives us: we are mortal, and that mortality is beautiful.
Three Autumns ago I was reading a collection of stories.
There was a particular story about migrating swans visiting the lake near a couple who lived in the rural woods. As the husband went to hunt, and found himself steadily forgetting his way back home. Each week he would take longer to arrive, coming back in the dark to his wife and the swans. The snow set in, and one day he didn't come home at all.
This song is about forgetting time. It's about time forgetting you, and it's about feeding the swans while we have the chance to. To sit by the fire and let the red leaves remind us that we are as mortal as we are lovely.
lyrics
Well it looks like I've lost my taste for physics
Seems like I've lost my touch for math.
Looks like I'm forgetting time again
Seems like I'm moving too fast.
Well feed your bread to the seven swans
Keep them warm at night, with your fires
Fill out your niche, live in peace,
oh but time, time, time
Will forget you too
And those September Winds
Well they'll forget your name
Well I know that death is a part of life
But I still grieve the same
Well I tell myself that my mind is growing up
It's shedding layers, it don't need
Sure would be simple, living out my days,
Pretending life don't hurt,
When it bleeds
Well feed your bread to the seven swans
Keep them warn at night, with your fires
Fill out your niche, live in peace
oh but time, time, time
Will forget you too
And those October Winds
Well they're howling again
Oh the leaf's death is red
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