Don't waste me in the ground

Song: "Naked As We Came"
Artist: Iron & Wine
Day: 4/19/06 & 4/20/06

Iron & Wine
"Naked as we Came"
I put on Iron's & Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days to drift off to sleep to last night and this song is the last thing I remember before sleep took me. All I really remembered from when I was dozing off was Sam Beams voice singing gently over an intricate guitar figure vaguely reminiscent of Pink Moon-era Nick Drake (specificly, "In the Morning") and I wondered if I would be as entranced upon waking and reading the lyrics.

And I was, and more. As I listened and then broke out the CD booklet several stories unfolded. The lines...
"She says 'Wake up its no use prentending.'
I'll keep stealing, breathing her"
...spoke to a casual, loving rituals of long term co-residence. Perhaps he is pretending to be asleep and she is teasing him about it.

But then the topic turns to death:
"Birds are leaving over autumn's ending
One of us will die inside these arms"
At first I wasn't certain, the "die inside these arms" can be read 2 ways, the Cutting Crew way and the literal sense. Soon it's clear he means it literally...
"She says 'If I leave before you, darling
Don't you waste me in the ground'"
.. and the "Wake up, it's no use pretending" retroactively took on a sinister tone. I satarted to ask myself, what is the she asking the narrator to "wake up" to? Terminal illness? (side note: "Don't you waste me in the ground" has to be the best request for cremation ever)

Viewed in their totality, though, the lyrics suggested a 3rd reading of a couple talking about their inevitable, not impending deaths and planning for it in the context of their marriage, love, and family. Odd morning conversation perhaps, but the ease and comfort that pervades the lyrics and the music is inspiring.

Whichever way you interpret it, the fact that it can lead you in a couple of different directions (not to mention the beautiful singing and guitar playing) makes it something special; the song becomes a minor triumph when you consider it does all this with just 12 lines of lyrics, 3 of which are repeated.

This is my current Second Favorite Death Song, sandwiched in between the Mountain Goats' "Shadow Song" after Why?s "Light Leaves". Full lyrics below:
She says "wake up, it's no use pretending"
I'll keep stealing, breathing her.
Birds are leaving over autumn's ending
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open, naked as we came
One will spread our ashes 'round the yard

She says "If I leave before you, darling
Don't you waste me in the ground"
I lay smiling like our sleeping children
One of us will die inside these arms
Eyes wide open, naked as we came
One will spread our ashes round the yard