A great amount of biblical references come across in this song, such as “Little Moses drifts downstream in the Nile” — The story of Moses being set adrift to describe himself. (Exodus 2:3?)
The man broke up with his lover, but now finds himself lost and aimless because he realizes his mistake, but it’s too late because she has moved on. A song about a man’s fading relationship with a lover and how both have come to cope with its aftermath, and the exploration of the same mans growing relationship with God, utilizing the same language throughout the song and leaving the listener to compare each.
You’re a door-without-a-key, a field-without-a-fence
You made a holy fool of me and I’ve thanked you ever since
And if she comes circling back we’ll end where we’d begun
The man’s focus throughout the song shifts from the importance of a romantic relationship, to the importance of a relationship with God. God likes to let us have things our way, make our mistakes and allow us or help us to look foolish, that he would show us his way is far better. The man becomes happy that his choices and mistakes are shown to him and that he has been corrected and brought back to Gods will. The woman is a closed door with no way to re-enter, while God becomes a field with no boundary for the man to cross. The man throughout the song try’s to manage a field on his own and fails constantly. He is presented with 2 choices, a locked door to his past, regret and only dim hope of meeting his lover again, or a field already well tended, right in front of him and inviting. The man believes that his lover and his God have made him foolish “holy fool” — a subset of ascetic life within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition and to some extent the Roman Catholic tradition as well where a person sacrifices their appearance of sanity on their path to achieve complete humility before God.
But if I’m a crown without a king, if I’m a broken open seed
If I come without a thing, then I come with all I need
No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead
Both are a description of Christ, who walked on water (“no boat out in the blue”) and Whom the scriptures say has “no place to lay His head” in both Luke and Matthew’s gospels: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” – Luke 9:58. Jesus Christ, who has sprung a trap of His own on the narrator’s state of mind. The man seeks direction, like a crown in search of a king. He has been broken open like a seed must be before it is able to grow.
I do not exist, I do not exist, I do not exist
I do not exist, only You exist, I do not exist
Time and space do not permit to explore the function of the refrain, “I do not exist”, which would require much to be said from Sufi metaphysics, Rumi’s poetry, philosophical states of mind, and ego-annihilation. The ending emphasizes the shift in focus to be solely on God rather than romantic love. The direction of the monologue gradually shifts over the course of the song, as the narrator speaks first only to his former lover, then to both his former lover and God, then only to God, referring to his lover in third person
“What happens when Us becomes me, without you/You?”