Wake for Young Souls

I hope I'm not too late and someone actually reads this.

This song is definitely about growing up and becoming who you need to be by sacrificing who you wanted to be.

For examples, it starts out with "Today I found my soul, I felt it die inside of me." We can really relate to this feeling because at some point or another we all wake up and find the soul we once had beneath the layers of business clothes and mild mannerisms just to see that we can never be where we once were. It was always there, but we kept it hidden and if we never let it out we will eventually see the day our soul has died inside.

To try and revive his old feelings and his lost soul "he" turns to "you" because he's remembering good times back when life was simple and "they" were together. But sadly, her soul has died too and she doesn't see him the same way he is seeing her because she has not woken up and found that she is really dead on the inside.

So after seeing his old friend, he begs to know 'What happened to us?! You were my friend! Wake up, you're dying inside! Try to remember who we are (were), it's not who we are now.' But she tells him that 'who we are now /is/ who we are now!'

In dismay he realizes that things are different between them as he had once realized before and he again begs to know "Where does time go?" Jenkins replies so poetically "on a wake for young souls" (which should be taken as a wake in water, like backwash or as the consequence of an event) because all the time we spend growing up and callousing our hearts to past events sends us farther apart on that wake for young souls...

The rest of the song continues as "he" realizes that everything he once knew, everything that made up his 'soul' is truly dead. The warm wind of love blows colder, the children and adorable babes grow older, friends we once could depend on turn their shoulder and the friends we loved grow colder.

The final stanzas of the song give us more detail to the relationship of "him" and "her". They are friends, yes, but they are lovers too and in young lust and naïvity they procreated. After their new baby was born they moved to "someplace wild" where they never expected to find themselves and from that one action all other painful actions have followed. Now with all this consequence even the "grey days" are worse than darkness of shadow and "beat the shade to wean" meaning that the monotonous becomes the most painful, darkest part of their lives because they did not mean to choose it! All these other consequences have followed their one action, each being "unbodied, unsouled, unheard, unseen" grating on their still young and naïve hearts.

But with all the painful consequence they still consider their child a gift and have resolved to make her life the greatest it can be in the time they are given. They vow to "let the truth be sewn before [her] window's closing" and give her a better life than they have ever known. No matter how painful or difficult it will be the "truth is natural like a wind that blows" and they'll "follow the direction, no matter where it goes". No matter how painful it may be he will protect his child by revealing all painful concepts of life and so he will "let the truth blow like a hurricane through [him]".

This ending stanza is an apology to his daughter for any pain the truth may cause her. It's difficult to give advice to a child because they claim to know, but he wants her to know that "if [he's] been cold" or ever "spoken in anger to have been bold" in protecting her, she must forgive him for his has been there and has seen the consequence of one bad action and he wants nothing like that for his beautiful child. Since her birth "he" has been through divorce in which he lost the one he at one time loved (or thought he loved) because he "[doesn't] see her mother, no not like before thought she hasn't forgotten (the love once shared) she doesn't like to be reminded anymore" because of the pain their love caused her.

And so time passed and "Annie got married (to someone else), it didn't come without tears" from both him, her and their daughter, but now he realizes that life is for learning and becoming. This reflection has taught him that not all tears are bad and "like the day you died (meaning his young lover's soul), I have laughter for these years!" because he has reflected and seen the good amongst all the pain while she got married and forced herself into even more pain because she is still young at heart, she could never see the good in their faulty actions. So now he realizes that "it's who we are now," not who we were because "Who we are now is who we are" and that wake that usually carries young souls is necessary, there is no reason to mourn. It's growing up and for true love we would sacrifice "who we are" for "who we are now."

This song is very dear to me and reminds me to see the good in "all the things we know" because I know that they are "going to fall away from me." They don't matter as much as what will be through love and the sacrifice that is found therein because as he realizes now all these young memories with young loves will be just "like a grain of sand [that] slips through a good friend's hands."