This song starts with both guitars in a way that, for a while, made it difficult to get my bearings. The left guitar comes in first with a pickup on the “and” of beat three, but since it’s the first sound in the song I always want to think of it as a downbeat. Then the second guitar (right ear) comes in and I want to think it’s playing upstrokes but it’s actually on the downbeat. The beats are definitively cleared up when the drums come in in full, but the beat is still odd as it emphasizes beats 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 3 as is more common in western music. The chorus switches to emphasize the first beat and includes claps at the ends of phrases. After the last chorus, we have a transition with an atmospheric guitar bit that I’m having trouble finding a word to describe. It ends with a dive into the soft jam at the end of the song, which is constantly changing in little ways. I love the echo on the snare and the drumming in general in this last section.

Daniel broke the king’s decree   
Peter stepped from the ship to the sea   
There was hope for Job like a cut down tree   
I hope that there’s such hope for me   
Dust be on my mind’s conceptions   
And anything I thought I knew   
Each word of my lips’ description   
And on all that I compare to You

The beginning lines reference 3 people from the Bible who experienced tests of their faith. He hopes there’s hope for him in the same way as those three, that he will be able to keep his faith in the same way.. 

Daniel, from the Book of Daniel, broke the decree of King Darius declaring no one but the king could pray for 30 days. Daniel kept praying and was thrown into the lion’s den for a punishment. God shut the mouths of the lions so Daniel was not eaten.  

In Matthew 14:25-33, Peter famously steps out from a boat onto water, though starts sinking when the wind picks up.

Job keeps his faith despite having his wealth, children, and health taken away from him. Though he doesn’t lose his faith in God, he does go on a large rant about the human condition, during which he says (Job 14:7-10):

At least there is hope for a tree:    
 If it is cut down, it will sprout again,    
 and its new shoots will not fail.

Its roots may grow old in the ground    
 and its stump die in the soil,    
 yet at the scent of water it will bud    
 and put forth shoots like a plant.

But a man dies and is laid low;    
 he breathes his last and is no more.

The last four lines state that dust is on his mind’s conceptions and words about God. Being one with God has been described as being one with what is in this moment, always new and changing, before thoughts and before words. In this way, all thoughts and words are old. For example, if you step into the cold, you might think “I’m cold”, but you felt the cold before the thought and didn’t need the thought to tell you that at all.

——————-

The preference of the sun was   
To the south side of the farm   
I planted to the north in a terra-cotta pot   
Blind as I’d become, I used to wonder where you are-   
These days I can’t find where you’re not!  

He previously did not put forth an honest effort regarding his spiritual growth. Blind, he couldn’t find God. Now awake, he sees God in everything..

——————-

Mine’s been a yard carefully surface level tended   
Foxes burrowed underground   
My gardening so well self-recommended   
What could I have done but let you down?

He used to keep up the appearance of doing spiritual work, and would even brag about how good he was at it while there was always trouble underneath. 

The foxes referenced are from Song of Solomon, a reference obviously used in the song “The Soviet” and the album title Catch For Us The Foxes. They represent personal faults that get in the way of someone’s relationship with God. “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes / that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.”

——————-

The Sun and the Moon   
I wanna see both worlds as One!   
The Sun and the Moon   
I wanna see both worlds as One!   
The Sun and the Moon   
I wanna see both worlds as One!

There are few relevant references here. Aaron stated in an interview that “The Sun and the Moon” is a reference to Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, during which Krishna confers divine sight on Arjuna so Arjuna can see Krishna’s full divinity:

 “You are without beginning, middle, or end; You touch everything with Your indefinite power. The sun and the moon are Your eyes, and Your mouth is fire; Your radiance warms the cosmos.”

Second is St. Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Sun,” in which Francis refers to the sun and moon, respectively, as “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon”, which ties into the album title. 

Third is “Only Breath” by Rumi, which includes, “I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.”

My interpretation of this chorus is that Aaron is seeking a nondual state, or a state in which he will see everything in the universe as inseparable parts of one whole. People in nondual states claim to be able to see apparent opposites, such as night/day, rich/poor, or right/wrong, as inextricably linked instead the “normal” way of seeing everything as separate. Because someone being rich implies someone poor, for example, they are mutually dependent on one another. 

Nonduality is also what Thrice is talking about in “Beyond the Pines”, what mewithoutYou is talking about in the first verse of “Julia”, and what Rumi is talking about in this poem they were both drawing from, that there is a place beyond ideas of right and wrong:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,   
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.   
When the soul lies down in that grass,   
the world is too full to talk about.   
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’    
doesn’t make any sense.”

——————-

Mine’s been a story, dimly remembered   
And by the time it’s told, halfway true   
Of bad behavior well engendered   
What good is each good thing we think we do?   
Daniel broke the king’s decree   
Peter stepped from the ship to the sea   
There was hope for Job like a cut down tree   
I only hope that there’s such hope for me

Once again, he’s putting his past down and hoping that there’s hope for him. 

The line “what good is each good thing we think we do?” puts me in mind Matthew 6:3: “But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” The idea here is that intentions matter. If you’re doing a “good” thing, you’re doing the action for your idea of good. In other words, even “good” things can be self-serving.

——————-

Find a friend and stay close and with a melting heart   
Tell them whatever you’re most ashamed of-   
Our parents have made so many mistakes   
But may we forgive them and forgive ourselves

A call to be open about our faults, forgiving ourselves and others. It’s an interesting inclusion in this album that rarely “breaks the fourth wall” (so to speak). This section and the “A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains” chorus are the only instances I can think of.  

——————-

The Sun and the Moon   
I wanna see both worlds as One!   
The Sun and the Moon   
I wanna see both worlds as One!   
The Sun and the Moon   
I wanna see both worlds as One!

*The Sun and the Moon are my Father’s eyes* (repeated)