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Well I often think about her
When the night comes and I'm hugging the road
And I know I'll never trace her
I can barely begin to place her chronologically
Just a flurry of white dresses and second guesses
Now less is much more to me
If I really think about it
It's all I ever think about
My landlord
Has been shooting
Bullets into paper birds
When he's drunk
He's immaculate
Especially before noon
What I'm trying to do
With these paper birds
Is to find a better way
To bleed one that's more accurate
And I'll practice
My aim
And I'll master
My game
And I'll know my song
Well before it leaves my lips
When the lady finished crying
I knew I had to say something to comfort her
But all I've learned from love
Is that what you love can be what destroys you
It's just a flower fading
Congratulating your vanity's champion
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old or even dead
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old or even dead
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old or even dead
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old
My landlord
Has been shooting
Bullets into paper birds
He's last
Of a dying breed
A pharmacist with wings
What I'm trying to do
With these paper birds
Is to find a better way
To bleed one that's more accurate
And I'll take
These targets
That I hit
They can go on
My refrigerator
For all my friends to see
Your ivory caught
Your salt white warm
Your swollen kiss
Your absent strength
Your mothwing bite
Your paper birds
Your lonely boy
Your soft machine
Your gaze of grief
Your 12 degrees
Your grieving moon
Your red-dipped wings
Your underworld
You're different from no one beside
Your speaking bones
Your absent strength
Your sleeping pale
Your almond trees
Your woman's sex
Your special days
Your grand valise
Your mom's not home
Your body plays
Your rise and set
Your mothwing bite
Your lonely boy
Your soft machine
Your swollen kiss
Your paper birds
You're different from no one besides
When the night comes and I'm hugging the road
And I know I'll never trace her
I can barely begin to place her chronologically
Just a flurry of white dresses and second guesses
Now less is much more to me
If I really think about it
It's all I ever think about
My landlord
Has been shooting
Bullets into paper birds
When he's drunk
He's immaculate
Especially before noon
What I'm trying to do
With these paper birds
Is to find a better way
To bleed one that's more accurate
And I'll practice
My aim
And I'll master
My game
And I'll know my song
Well before it leaves my lips
When the lady finished crying
I knew I had to say something to comfort her
But all I've learned from love
Is that what you love can be what destroys you
It's just a flower fading
Congratulating your vanity's champion
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old or even dead
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old or even dead
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old or even dead
It's the blood I want to shed before I'm old
My landlord
Has been shooting
Bullets into paper birds
He's last
Of a dying breed
A pharmacist with wings
What I'm trying to do
With these paper birds
Is to find a better way
To bleed one that's more accurate
And I'll take
These targets
That I hit
They can go on
My refrigerator
For all my friends to see
Your ivory caught
Your salt white warm
Your swollen kiss
Your absent strength
Your mothwing bite
Your paper birds
Your lonely boy
Your soft machine
Your gaze of grief
Your 12 degrees
Your grieving moon
Your red-dipped wings
Your underworld
You're different from no one beside
Your speaking bones
Your absent strength
Your sleeping pale
Your almond trees
Your woman's sex
Your special days
Your grand valise
Your mom's not home
Your body plays
Your rise and set
Your mothwing bite
Your lonely boy
Your soft machine
Your swollen kiss
Your paper birds
You're different from no one besides
Lyrics submitted by Theoogabear, edited by Xusder
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The paper birds are letters.
When I hear this song, I weave a story in my head. A man was involved with a woman, they were going to marry, but then something happened and she left him, maybe even at the altar. He still loves her and thinks about her. The paper birds are his love letters that he writes to her, but his landlord is always biringing them back to him because they never reach her.
The lady crying is the girls mother. The girl left him (for some reason I think it's because she found out she had cancer, can't remember why I came up with that) and ended up dying alone. So he continues to be sorrowful and write his paper birds, with the kind landlord returning them. He finally opens the returned letters for all to see (and kills himself?) The letters are full of all his memories of her.
Probably my favorite Slip tune, which is saying a lot. I remember when they started playing it and it was called "My Landlord" on bootlegs. Once it was published, it was called "Paper Birds," which I think hints at the meaning more directly.
It starts with a description of time spent with a woman who was probably the narrator's ex, and I imagine that the crying lady in the later verse is the same person, and that he ended the relationship ("second guesses").
I picture the landlord as a sort of beautifully eccentric loner, possibly an addict, who has a habit of making origami figures and then destroying them. The narrator identifies with this person, both their loneliness, and the need to create things.
The narrator has his own paper birds, which I take to be his art. They are how he expresses himself emotionally to the world ("better way to bleed" / "for all my friends to see") and also how he views his legacy ("before I'm old or even dead"). But they set him apart from people in a way that dooms his relationships. And he acknowledges in a self-deprecating way that these things are as ephemeral or trivial as paper birds, and that destruction is part of creation.
PS. The last section of "Paper Birds" is similar to the last half of Broken Social Scene's "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl," and IIRC the original lyrics were similar enough to that song's that they ended up revising them to what they are now. The first half (which didn't show up in "Paper Birds") goes "Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that," which seems relevant.