Animals by Coco Rosie Lyrics Meaning – Unraveling the Hermit’s Heartache and Connection with the Wild
Lyrics
Of all the wicked avenues I’ve ever sold my love on
All these moments of meekness and trembling subsided
In the outright abandon of this orphan child.
Home is on the highway living on soft bread and solace,
I guess I’m waiting for nightfall or a solar eclipse
And to wake up half empty
Only to be filled again with mourning
He’s my evil shadow dove
My black Palamito
Can’t break him like a diamond skull
I can’t seem to do so
I Can’t just rub him out like the
Mob used to do so
Like memories of porno and tea stains
And tobacco, Oh, it’s a mini disastro
Bigger than the ice age don’t know if baby dinosaurs
Maybe could live through it, or Indians and butterflies
What’s crushed is my spirit, Oh I fear it is too fragile,
Like fall leaves burn like paper…
I always knew I would spend a lot of time alone
No one would understand me,
Maybe I should go and live amongst the animals..
Spend all my time amongst the animals
And on the tracks I would go they lead to the sea
To be amongst the animals…
Oh I’m just a fall leaf something simple and shy lie that,
That’s how my heart lies down beside the sidewalk
Like an empty restaurant filled with perfume and balloons,
I sit and entertain the bizarre ghosts of my soul
His name still lingers maybe lactates on my tongue
Perhaps I’m just teething for a foreign fallen destiny
Miserable but mine, I look like his mother
Or Sophia Loren in an old fashioned movie
Slow motion I cling to my child, desperate for love
One day soon my brother died, made me remember all the
Subordinate feelings I cast aside
And maybe I had lied when I said I was ok
Just getting along like a little song that stops to sing and say
“Wild willow, windy winter won’t you blow through me
My whole eternity”
Now I always knew that I would spend a lot of time alone…
Nooone would understand me maybe I should go and live amongst the animals…
Spend all my time amongst the animals…
And on the tracks I would go they lead to the sea
To be amongst the animals…
Now I always knew that I would spend a lot of time alone…
No one would understand me maybe I should go and live amongst the animals…
Spend all my time amongst the animals…
And on the tracks I would go they lead to the sea
To be amongst the animals…
In the grand tapestry of musical contemplation, CocoRosie’s ‘Animals’ emerges as a poignant meditation on solitude, alienation, and a visceral longing for the primal. This evocative track digs deep into the marrow of an intimate struggle, wrapping the listener in a cocoon of melancholic revelation.
To understand ‘Animals’ is to traverse a spiritual odyssey, draped in CocoRosie’s signature ethereal tones. It’s more than a mere song; it’s a raw exposition of a soul stripped bare, seeking solace in the unjudging embrace of nature’s finest creatures.
A Lonely Journey Through Life’s ‘Wicked Avenues’
The song opens with a stark confession of loneliness in the aftermath of compromised love. With a poet’s touch, CocoRosie paints the imagery of life’s tainted experiences, the ‘wicked avenues’ where the protagonist’s love was, perhaps, commodified or given in desperation.
The meekness and trembling mentioned suggest prior vulnerability, a softer side that has since hardened in the ‘outright abandon’ of an ‘orphan child,’ a metaphor for the isolation that comes with a profound recognition of one’s singularity in the world.
The Pursuit of Solace in Nature’s Embrace
As the protagonist contemplates the nomadic sanctuary of the ‘highway’, with ‘soft bread and solace’ as sustenance, there’s a palpable yearning for escape from the material and into the spiritual. This sentiment is exemplified by the desire for ‘nightfall or a solar eclipse’, seeking transformation in the darkness or the extraordinary.
The juxtaposition of waking ‘half empty’ and being refilled with ‘mourning’ suggests a cycle of despondency that’s temporarily alleviated, only to return with the inevitability of daybreak. This cycle mirrors the natural rhythms of the animalistic world the song seeks to join.
Unshakable Demons and the Scarred Psyche
The ‘evil shadow dove’ and ‘black Palomito’ symbolize an inextricable connection with darker elements of the self that cannot be ‘broken’ or ‘rubbed out’. These figures stand as both companions and tormentors, much like the inescapable nature of past traumas that linger and haunt us.
The ‘mini disastro’ that’s ‘bigger than the ice age’ becomes CocoRosie’s lament of inner turmoil. It’s a catastrophe that their spirit, now ‘too fragile’, might not withstand, calling to mind a sense of existential jeopardy that’s akin to the great and unforgiving shifts of the earth.
The Song’s Most Memorable Lines – Chords of Vulnerability
The poignant admission of knowing one would ‘spend a lot of time alone’ resonates as a moment of self-awareness and acceptance. It’s this realization that pushes the soul towards the company of animals, finding kinship in their untainted existence.
CocoRosie doesn’t just sing these words; they inhabit them. The sentiment of belonging on the ‘tracks…that lead to the sea’ metaphorically suggests a desire to follow an innate, perhaps preordained path towards purity — the sea as a place of boundless freedom and rebirth.
Decoding the Song’s Hidden Meaning – When Humanity Falters, Seek the Wild
In the end, ‘Animals’ is a compelling narrative that speaks of retreating to the untamed world when the weight of human existence becomes unbearable. It’s an ode to the elemental, to the raw simplicity and truth found beyond society’s complex charades.
CocoRosie invites the listener to consider that when our spirits are crushed, when our siblings of experiences die out, perhaps the most genuine solace lies among the creatures—the ‘animals’—who are free from the convoluted constructs that imprison human emotion. It is here, within these lyrics, that one might find the path to salvation through reversion, not progression.
