Silver Bridge

The idea of dying being a "crossing over" into another land or place is a universal one. So is the idea of that other land being across a body of water that has to be rowed across... or perhaps spanned with a bridge.

This song is about watching someone standing on that bridge cross over it. In other words, it's about someone dying.

The song starts with the end of the story, that it is about a "recently departed" individual who went into "that land uncharted."

There is foreshadowing in the "old man" going up to his room by "the stairway he ascended" after a goodnight kiss. The speaker reports him "struggle" all night to live, yet also reaching out to "Saturn," the king of the mythical gods.

The speaker enters the room, not sure what to do and "frozen" with indecision and "wonder." She simply "stared upon his body" in the "silver" moonlight. This moonbeam she images as the "silver bridge" in the title, between here and the hereafter.

Yet, she does nothing, having "witnessed all there was to see." She doesn't "move to him," since he "wasn't [hers] for claiming." Instead, she "withdrew."

Then she realizes he is, in fact, dead, "so much more than sleeping." She stays with him as a "vigil" the rest of the night and morning and even into the "afternoon." (Why she does not alert the authorities-- or the party for which he was "for claiming"-- much sooner is not mentioned, but highly irregular. Most would call as soon as they realized the person had died, or even if they thought he might be dying.)

The experience has had a profound impact on the speaker. She wonders about sleepless nights, and if they represent a form of "standing on that bridge." And, if so, "which way are you facing?" Is it the Land of the Living, or the "land uncharted"?

The lines are thin between sleep, unconsciousness, coma, brain death, death itself, and even animal and plant states like stasis and hibernation. It is understandable that a person with no medical training might not be able to tell the difference, certainly not by simple observation from several feet away.

The speaker seems to understand this and does not berate herself for not getting help sooner. She sincerely thought he was asleep.

But now, it seems, she is having trouble sleeping herself. And more troubled, in that she feels troubled by her inability to sleep... and worried about what that means, and what it portends.


Next Song: Song of the Stoic

Tombstone

There is a lot of ambiguity in this song. Then again, the subject is death, and most people are ambiguous on that topic.

It begins by the speaker saying she like tombstones because they endure. Then she says "If it stands or if it crumbles/ Only time will tell." So... does it endure or might it erode? Unless she means, by saying that a tombstone "weathers well" that it gains character as it ages.

She continues that she wants her name carved "deep" into the stone, to make sure that if and when the stone does erode, the name will remain. So she expects visitors. Yet, she does not wish to greet them: "You must let me sleep."

She does say that the guests must comport themselves: "There'll be no dancing on my gravestone." Usually, this expression means "to celebrate a death," usually of one's enemies. But she says this as if she means there might be genuinely happy dance parties at her grave-site, and doesn't want those, either.

Then comes a line which does not seem to directly relate to death: "I don't need to see the gates of famous men." But when would someone want to do that? We want to see the men, not their gates (aside from on the actual website "Driveways of the Rich and Famous"). We really only tour their mansions once they are... oh. Hmm.

"But I do try to see the kingdom every now and then." This line sounds like something a royal personage would say, if forced to leave the palace. Unless it means "The Kingdom" as in "of Heaven." But how does one "visit" Heaven? At church? At a graveyard?

Oh, she's about to tell us: "If you ask me where it is..." Yes? "It's on a humble map." Well, an earthly king would brook no such map of his kingdom, so this must mean she is referring to Heaven. Further, "to enter in the doorway, show your handicap." Yes, before one enters the Pearly Gates, one must be prepared to confess one's shortcomings and sins.

This song sounds like it comes from a person reconciled with her mortality, but not ready to actualize it. "Time is burning... it burns away," she muses. She doesn't say she wants to fan the flames and hasten its burning, just that she is aware that it is, in fact, doing so.

She'd like to be remembered, but if that's not to be-- oh, well. She doesn't care if she meets anyone famous in Heaven as much as she simply would like to go there and see it for herself. And she is prepared to wait her turn, then come clean as she steps up.

An almost logical approach to what, for most, in a highly emotional subject.

Next Song: My Favorite Plum

Pilgrimage

This song is about entropy-- or, as it applies to human life-- mortality. So why is the title about a spiritual journey to a holy place?

Let's start with a simpler question: What does the first line of the song mean? "This line is burning..." What line?

She means the line of the song, the line of music, the words she is singing themselves. The words and notes live on the ear for a fraction of a second apiece before dispersing into scattered waves.

Similarly, once a moment in time has passed, it may as well be ash. Its potential has been burned up like a spent matchstick, a used wick, or a piece of kindling. She begins this thought by mentioning the days of the week, and the words "months" and "year."

The next thought concludes logically: "This life is burning." Time started before we were born and will continue after we die. We are here for a few moments, relatively speaking (if the Earth's history were one year, all of human existence would take place in the last hour of December 31). So if time is being burned up, so is our lifetime.

But she holds out a note of hope. Yes, "every death is an end," but for all this "stopping," there is also "starting," or new birth. This is a "march over millions of years," and each generation takes its steps in turn.

All of this progress is pointing where, though? Here is all this "travel." Where is the destination, the "arrival"? The progression is, she says, "toward a source." So... Heaven? It would explain the title-- all of life is a pilgrimage back to the Heaven (which certainly counts as a holy place) from whence we came.

Then the speaker gets both more specific and more enigmatic about her destination: "I'm coming to you." To whom? God? A passed-on relative waiting in Heaven? (If so, this song might link to the previous one. That song was about a suicide attempt; perhaps the person tried to kill themselves to reunite with someone waiting in Heaven, and this song is from her perspective.)

The idea of "burning" and "turning to ash" is now applies to the land. The soil erodes, the continents rise and sink, and the whole Earth itself has a time limit due to the Sun's inevitable collapse.

The speaker closes with a parting gift: "Take this/ Mute mouth/ Broken tongue." The deceased is bequeathing her very silence as an inheritance. Why is silence a gift?

Death, which the speaker says she has been marching toward for years, has arrived. And now the "dark," painful-- perhaps physically so but certainly emotionally so-- life, has hope... the hope of an end.

"Now," that the pilgrimage has ended, the Promised Land of relief and release has been attained: "Now this dark life is shot through with light."

Many who have had near-death experiences speak of seeing a great light. But even without such a vision, the idea of life ending may not seem frightening to some. For those with "dark" lives, an end to such a life just means an end to the darkness, and so, light.

There is a movement now to take the idea of euthanasia a step further. Rather than it only being used to speed an inevitable death and avoid a protracted and agonizing decline, some would like a medically assisted suicide to be available to those with chronic pain, both of the physical and mental varieties. There are fates worse than death, a life of suffering may be one.

The speaker here has made grand claims about the entropy of the universe to rationalize her desire-- we're all dying all the time anyway, so what's the big deal? But really, she just wants to die so that the pain of missing her lost loved one can end.

There is a old comedy line: "If you can't live without me, why aren't you dead yet?" But the question is not funny, or rhetorical, to the speaker here. She would reply, "Give me a minute, I'm working on it."

Is the person making a pilgrimage to Heaven, or to the embrace of a lost loved one? For the speaker, those places are the same.


Next Song: Rock in this Pocket