[Verse 1]
There’s a kind of music that reminds me of you
It’s all clear expensive drinks and shiny shirts
And the click of heels as they descend from the taxi
Like the first foot on the moon, oh, and it glows with ache
And if it hits me right, oh, it’s almost too much to take
And it’s got right angle laser razor thin lines
That curve and swerve like perfect sines
As we dress to the nines in an attempt to leave it all behind
In a search of the moment between the seconds where
Everything is just fine
That silver thread embedded deep within our spines
And I used to be kind of weird about this
A fear of dependence on a guilty gilt-edged
Hedged transcendence that makes us liars
And tense the fear of looking down and seeing
That nothing really suspends us
But it was never just another Saturday night
[Chorus]
And wave them like you just don’t care
It’s on a whim; it’s on a dare
To shrug away what we can’t bear
And we’re going back and forth and back and forth
We’re going back and forth and back and forth
[Verse 2]
So it’s a deep blue see-through membrane that protects us
It connects us, a pulsing cellophane
Party-train skein that helps us and
Envelopes and keeps us locked inside
Forever and ever along for the ride
And we’re moving through a phosphorescent gel
A semi-solid self-lit ocean and it’s a funny notion, isn’t it?
Yeah, but I’m kinda digging it
And it’s rigged and isn’t nearly so big
And it speaks only of its own perpetual near miss
Like the uncertain memory of a stranger’s mistaken kiss
As faces slide by in glowing shadows
Like snowbound ghosts that go up and down
In epileptic shivers and negative radioactive slivers
In a landscape of endless dull glitter
And a taste in my mouth so sweet, yet so bitter
We exhaust ourselves trying to get there
[Chorus]
Somebody scream, all right
We’ll try to fill the echoless night
So fasten up and hold tight
We can’t give up without a fight
And we’re going back and forth and back and forth
And back and forth and back
We’re going back and forth and back and forth
And back and forth and back
[Verse 3]
So in the end, whatever, we die, we dissolve
Equations unbalanced, riddles unsolved
And we were never connected or involved
Except for the intersections and crazy mathematics
With no time and no space and no schedule and no place
And they pass right through us without a trace
And sometimes that music drifts through my car
On a spring night when anything is possible
And I close my eyes and I nod my head
And I wonder how you been and I count to a hundred and ten
Because you’ll always be my hero, even if I never see you again
Phosphorescence is defined as “an enduring luminescence without sensible heat”. A gel is not quite a liquid, and not quite a solid, so it’s semi-solid.
A phosphorescent gel is semi-solid and self-lit.
We’re biologically programmed to be aware of social hirarchy; feeling apt, even just for a second, is our natural tendency (survival of the fittest)
Nod
The singer and his partner toy with the idea of breaking up (“to shrug away what we can’t bear”, what they cant bear being each other) but go “back and forth” and are indecisive.
It’s through this coincidental nature of the world that he finds a feeling of freedom (irregardless if he is or isn’t) – he “lives for the moment” as they say
The album ends with our nihilistic and antisocial protagonist finally caring and worrying about another person.
He realizes that it’s because of the insanity of trying to make sense of personal relationships that he should appreciate what he had for what it was at it’s time (be it his ex, friends, the city, etc).
We can finally see the protagonist changed, and he is accepting the life for what it is, and tries to be optimistic with his newly found freedom.
This goes back to the theme of moving to the city, the narrator recalls a fashionable girl in the big city, supposedly his ex; and how he idolized high social status
Looking back at how things used to be, and how good it was, is aswell good (sweet), but also depressing and it causes lot of pain (bitter).
That music goes back to the first line to wrap up the song, which in and of itself may be of that kind of music that reminds him of her.
In a nihilistic fashion, the narrator admits that after all said and done, life is meaningless whether or not we solve our problems, and everything that happened was pretty much a coincidence of the math that describes the rules that govern our world; so he might as well take things lightly sometimes
The independency aspiring men/woman in their 20s, lie to themselves that one can transcend dependence, not because they think it’s not benefitial, but because they’re scared of trusting others: no reason to be together in the 0-sum game that is relationship, except for being together in and of itself.
We often look for things that remind us good times, and how it used to be.
Here, “music” can be an allegory to any sort of retrospection, and it speaks about author’s Ex-girlfriend most likely.
This shows the importance that the narrator’s ex has in his life; she turns another saturday night into something special.
Spring is the season where all nature regrows after cold winter. Leaves appear on branches of trees, and flowers bloom.
Author may want his life to regrow and start again, end a painfull chapter.
Night was also a time in romanticism, where all the sensual things used to happen, often recognised with lovers.