[loopstronik778]

I love the song Cuckoo Cuckoo as do many Animal Collective fans do but one thing thats always troubled me about the song is the meaning and not really so much the meaning but more or so the meaning many people have just given it, the it's about Avey's wife at the time having a miscarriage. Is this true or is it just speculation? I think it could just be a metaphor for a loss of innocence like Alvin Row but i could be wrong.

[roopn]

Code: Select all

How I lost my boy
How I lost my boy
How I lost my boy
How I lost my boy

The king in I died
He kept floating past my eyes
And singing his songs
Life was good now death's all wrong
Cause you can't feel a thing
No heart flutters in late spring
You just drift and pray
For sun kissed golden days

And I can't hold what's in my hand
Don't do any good to say this isn't what I planned
And little kids sliding down the steel park slide
Little kids can't play with things that have died
Sometimes all I want is one favorite song
And two to three minutes don't seem so long
And where's my mom I want to hold her tight
She's so far away from crowded nights
I'm going cuckoo cuckoo
We're all going cuckoo cuckoo

He said please stay
You can see me, don't go away
I can't see the landscape
Please describe its amaranthine haze
It's odd where I am
There are people you're not like them
They just look away
For rain quenched golden days

And my tears quench five feet of lawn
And I can scream, but I cannot yawn
And people gonna come and people gonna cry
He just woke and dreamt and ate and died
Don't try and erase what you have done
Put your fingers in a mouth and kiss it if it wants
And where's my friend, I want to hold him tight
He's so far away from mountain lights
I'm going cuckoo cuckoo
We're all going cuckoo cuckoo

[roopn]

To me it's about the depths of grief. Any more specific than that I'm not sure you can really say.

As far as I know the misscarriage thing is pure speculation, which is so personal I wouldn't want to assume it's something like that. The lyrics filter some kind of experience into something communicable. The specifics of what dave might've been going through aren't that relevant because the poetry is so visceral and vivid, it gives you the full emotional truth of the experience. all the pain, anguish, desolation, anger and fear comes through in the words and the performance.

must be up there among the most exposed he has ever been in a song. but he is a very vulnerable writer, it's what makes so many AC songs so good

[loopstronik778]

roopn wrote:

To me it's about the depths of grief. Any more specific than that I'm not sure you can really say.

As far as I know the misscarriage thing is pure speculation, which is so personal I wouldn't want to assume it's something like that. The lyrics filter some kind of experience into something communicable. The specifics of what dave might've been going through aren't that relevant because the poetry is so visceral and vivid, it gives you the full emotional truth of the experience. all the pain, anguish, desolation, anger and fear comes through in the words and the performance.

must be up there among the most exposed he has ever been in a song. but he is a very vulnerable writer, it's what makes so many AC songs so good

Thanks for the reply! I do agree that the song is more about the images that it paints with its words and how the meaning is still up to debate, I just wanted an answer to a kind of unanswerable question, stupid as it may sound

[roopn]

loopstronik778 wrote:

roopn wrote:

To me it's about the depths of grief. Any more specific than that I'm not sure you can really say.

As far as I know the misscarriage thing is pure speculation, which is so personal I wouldn't want to assume it's something like that. The lyrics filter some kind of experience into something communicable. The specifics of what dave might've been going through aren't that relevant because the poetry is so visceral and vivid, it gives you the full emotional truth of the experience. all the pain, anguish, desolation, anger and fear comes through in the words and the performance.

must be up there among the most exposed he has ever been in a song. but he is a very vulnerable writer, it's what makes so many AC songs so good

Thanks for the reply! I do agree that the song is more about the images that it paints with its words and how the meaning is still up to debate, I just wanted an answer to a kind of unanswerable question, stupid as it may sound

not stupid at all, I didn't mean to come off as dismissive of your question. I'd love to read other interpretations of this track. I tend to lean into the mystery of these things, while plenty of people are able to analyse with a lot more clarity

[Fovrodi]

Deakin

wrote:

“Cuckoo Cuckoo” on Strawberry Jam – I mean, just talking about it I’m welling up. The energy and generalized emotion coming through that song was such that every fucking time we played it live, it made my whole body shake. On some level I can listen to that song lyrically and think that I understand what Dave is talking about, but I also know well enough at this point not to presume to know what he’s directly talking about. But it was expressing something that felt not even narratively tangible. I’ve struggled with the value versus the handicap of emotional hypersensitivity for a long time. I do sometimes feel like the odd man out in life. But when I produce records with Avey Tare, they are usually his most personal statements. He trusts me; I feel like an emotional midwife or something. On some level, that deeply relatable quality is why this music matters so much to me. If it was sonically adventurous yet emotionally dry, I wouldn’t connect to it as much.

https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2 ... ayDbawzDnE

[loopstronik778]

roopn wrote:

loopstronik778 wrote:

roopn wrote:

To me it's about the depths of grief. Any more specific than that I'm not sure you can really say.

As far as I know the misscarriage thing is pure speculation, which is so personal I wouldn't want to assume it's something like that. The lyrics filter some kind of experience into something communicable. The specifics of what dave might've been going through aren't that relevant because the poetry is so visceral and vivid, it gives you the full emotional truth of the experience. all the pain, anguish, desolation, anger and fear comes through in the words and the performance.

must be up there among the most exposed he has ever been in a song. but he is a very vulnerable writer, it's what makes so many AC songs so good

Thanks for the reply! I do agree that the song is more about the images that it paints with its words and how the meaning is still up to debate, I just wanted an answer to a kind of unanswerable question, stupid as it may sound

not stupid at all, I didn't mean to come off as dismissive of your question. I'd love to read other interpretations of this track. I tend to lean into the mystery of these things, while plenty of people are able to analyse with a lot more clarity

Thanks!

[rohcti]

That Deakin quote is God-tier

I've always took it to be about aging and yearning for simpler times and the things you have lost through a lens of grief, could also be more directly about death. but maybe that's too simple/obvious of an interpretation. I never really analyzed the lyrics, they are really good.