How do you begin to describe these things?

You should skip straight to the song and lyrics below........

I make weird analogies. Sometimes. Usually they don't work. Mostly because it's so lousy an analogy that instead of reducing complexities, it further obfuscates. Instead of a logical inference, the analogy becomes illogical.

After buying Plans by Death Cab For Cutie, I didn't really gave it a good listen because I thought I had already found my favouritest song off the album with I Will Follow You Into The Dark.

Until some few days ago I read off some blog that What Sarah Said was a really heart-wrenching song about hospital waiting rooms and the lyrics painted such vivid imagery that you can smell the piss and the 409 (name of a floor chemical cleaner) emanating from the hospital floor.

Heart-wrenching? Vivid Imagery? I was in want and eager to listen to it in a heartbeat.

And that was when I saw the weird title of the next song - Brothers On A Hotel Bed. It was easy to know what What Sarah Said was singing about. But it took a number of listens to get what Brothers On A Hotel Bed was about. Yeah, I'm dense like that. Dense as in dumb, slow and not intelligent.

The lack of a proper chorus makes the song even better but again, that's just me.

The song first starts by describing the physical changes of the person, how he retains none of the youthfulness that had once graced his face. Then it's about the non-physical changes; mental, emotional... He no longer recognises himself. The younger version of himself. He remembers how he didn't want to grow old like this because he didn't want to be a tiresome old fudge.

The two versions of him tries to rationalise but however much they try, he can never recover any of it that has come to pass. And his attempts are futile however much he yearns to regain what he has lost in the in-between years that has slipped by. And the title of the song, Brothers On A Hotel Bed, is used to describe this distance between himself and his former self. Two brothers on the same bed, will try their best to sleep as far apart as possible and there is an awkwardness compressed within that space. Mumbling their goodnights with their faces turned away.

Brothers On A Hotel Bed

You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I'm not who I used to be

No longer easy on the eyes
But these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below,
Who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for; both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident

On the back of a motorbike
With your arms outstretched, trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete and the city where we still reside

And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men
Because now we say goodnight from our own separate sides like brothers on a hotel bed

You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I'm not who I used to be

Death Cab For Cutie