Illfish
An admittedly and quite unabashedly weird/quirky song, drawing on imagery ranging from Greek myth to Chinese takeout. The subject matter, however, is quite real. It goes back to my life in Chicago, where I helplessly observed from the sidelines as hostility and verbal aggression eroded a man's relationship with his partner. In the end it seemed all the fighting made them curators of the remains of their past rather than creators of a living, present-day relationship. Once the glass was finally broken and the last artifacts left to decay, there was grief but also freedom.
That no good fortune cookie was right
You had happiness beside you
For a long, long day
Folding a message into its midst
And I think it must be easy
Hiding far away
While the blunted saw you've spoken
Burns and bruises skin like clay
You will never be fingered, never be made to account
Some other love will pay
This sickly feeling under my breath
I recall in stronger measures
From a courtly storm
Olympus shaken, Hera crouched low
As the things of myth and story
Took a fearful form
The unsettled quiet reading
Of the things that came to pass
Made the lovers curators, no more to create than preserve
Will someone break the glass?
