This song starts with shakers and bells before one guitar enters. Everyone else comes in in the verse, including a horn playing along with the lead guitar. The first phrase of the chorus is soft before everyone including the background vocals join in. A second horn is added after the first chorus, adding harmony to the line played in the first verse. After the second chorus, they return to the intro before the “it never ends” part. The song ends on the guitars playing their verses with a little ritard at the end of the phrase.

Our house wrapped in disrepair   
A small mouse peeked out from a hole beneath the stairs   
Nearby to where my dad sat in his favorite chair   
Thinking about the government and muttering a prayer   
So I scattered some oats in hopes she’d stay   
And sat still to stop from scaring her away-   
But she hurried on her little way   
And scurried ’round my mind   
Ever since   
Every day

Aaron met this “mouse” while he was still living in his parents’ somewhat shabby home. He tried to get her to stay by scattering “oats” and being perhaps overly cautious in sitting still. She left physically but she’s still on his mind constantly. It’s clear from the rest of the song that the “mouse” is a metaphor for someone he was interested in romantically. The oats represent what he was offering in the relationship, which, given the lyrics on the rest of the album and previous albums, may have had a lot to do with his faith.

“Thinking about the government” is a direct reference to Bob Dylan’s song “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.

——————-

Open wide my door, my door, my Lord   
(Open wide my door)   
To whatever makes me love You more   
(Open wide my door)   
While there’s still light to run towards   
(Open wide my door)

This one is pretty self-explanatory: Aaron is asking God to open the door to his heart wide.

——————-

Like water on the dry wood   
Equal parts misguided and misunderstood   
But all the neighborhood   
Watched a fire burn from where they stood   
As the smoke said   
“we’re not half as bad as G-d is good”   
Still there’s a whisper in my ear   
The voice of loneliness and fear, and I say:   
“Devil, disappear!   
I’m still (ehh… technically…) a virgin   
After 27 years –   
Which never bothered me before   
What’s maybe 50 more?

Water on dry wood is a reference to 1 Kings 18, where God performs a miracle for Elijah by burning up wood in a trench that had pots of water poured on it. The wood burning proved to the people of Israel that the Baal cult was a fraud.

Despite the water on the dry wood, he has witnessed enough to believe in God. However, he still has doubts about the celibate path he’s on.  

The “technically” qualification on the virgin bit may be inspired by Matthew 5:28, The Sermon on the Mount: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

——————-

Open wide my door, my door, my Lord   
(Open wide my door)   
To whatever makes me love You more   
(Open wide my door)   
While there’s still light to run towards   
(Open wide my door)

——————-

She came back for the oats   
But she brought along a “friend”   
(It never ends)   
The harder the rain   
The lower the flowers in the garden bend   
(It never ends)   
I’d rather never talk again   
Than to continue to pretend   
That this never ends   
(It never ends)   
(It never ends)   
(It never ends)   
(It never ends)

The mouse returns for the “oats” he had to offer, but this time she has a boyfriend. It is clear that the oats were only offered in a romantic way, and it’s causing him distress.

He is enduring a “hard rain” and he doesn’t foresee it stopping. “The harder the rain / The lower the flowers in the garden bend” suggests that what he’s going through is testing his faith. The story picks up in “In A Market Dimly Lit” with references to the end of Noah’s flood.