I (Susan) will describe a bit about the meanings of each song in out debut album. I’ll group them together thematically. First up — “songs that are primarily about ‘couple’ relationships”
Halifax Hurricane: Though it sounds like a quintessential disaster song, these lyrics quickly go from describing an actual event (the munitions explosion in the Halifax harbor in December of 1917) to depicting a stormy relationship. I tried to draw together a true event (the explosion) with a fictional account of a hurricane and the storminess of a particularly rough partner (also fictional!) — ending with the narrater asking that his remains be brought somewhere “that’s nowhere she’ll find me or look for my bones she blew off the coast at landfall.”
Phoenix: Our friend Leann is the inspiration for “Phoenix.” She rose from the ashes and found a new life. “She doesn’t have to say anything….I see the place she wore her ring.” We are the place she landed when she “(laid) down the rocks to make that path.
Lifted up from burning ash.
Built a map with open hands. Swim away to welcome lands.”
Time Got A Mistress: The title is self-explanatory. I wrote this while watching my youngest daughter walk across her high school stage to get an academic award. I imagined young love turn to a maturing relationship….turning to boredom and disenchantment. ….A situation where there is no steamy affair…..just the passage of time that pulls a couple apart. “Now time got a mistress time went out and came home drunk.
And pages turned much faster,
and I had to close my eyes ……to leave the dark.”
I saw this happen to some friends and it saddened me. So I wrote the ending of the song to imply that the marriage was saved.
“Such tarnished earrings,
Still brighten the eyes that look for mine.
I’ll take the slow lane.
And I never knew who moved the finish line.
(Last CHORUS:)
Now time got a mistress and time went out and came home drunk.
And I finished what I started and I had to close my eyes to leave the dark.”
How Do You: I was thinking about how some folks keep making the same mistakes over and over, hence the repeated line “I say I’m never going to do it again, I’m doing it again… “ The song basically goes through all the ways the narrator is questioning themselves about what they are trying (and failing!) to do.
Maybe: I wrote these lyrics (like most) in one sitting. I distinctly remember being on my living room couch while Mike practiced with his other band in the basement. I took the viewpoint of an unfortunate soul who lost out on love because they didn’t pay attention to what was going on. “You’ll find me, head in the sand. Glass in my hand. Out with the band.”
Something like that. It’s also one of my shortest songs, lyrically.