The Holding and the Going
The strange attraction of dreams; I often want to re-enter a dream upon waking, before the realisation that it _was_ a dream, and that this is wakefulness, sets in.
Summary
The song explores the strange pull of dreams and the psychological tension between desire to re-enter a dream and the realization that it was all a dream. It uses a repetitive structure and shifting pronouns to reflect the internal struggle of the dreamer, who is caught between the dream and the waking state. The chorus repeatedly emphasizes the "holding and the going," underscoring the dreamer's ongoing experience of the dream while the waking mind disowns it. The use of the cello and rain as ambient sounds enhances the emotional weight of the dream's dissolution.
Lyrics
[Verse 1]
The dawn comes pale through wet leaves
I woke at five-twenty in the rain
Karen lent me a bicycle
At the intersection in the dream
[Verse 2]
Glass walls overlooking laboratories
A food stall in the corridor, centrifuges hum
We were meant to meet at five-thirty
In a small lab I never came to
[Chorus]
This is the holding and the going
The map you're standing on
You only see the shape of it
The moment that it's gone
[Verse 3]
I am milling through the throbbing corridor
Every staircase is a circle home
What the dreaming brain assembles
The waking brain will scatter or disown
[Chorus]
This is the holding and the going
The map you're standing on
You only see the shape of it
The moment that it's gone
[Bridge]
The waking brain comes in like a slamming door
Says you don't need this, says you don't need that
Says where you were is not where you live now
And it closes off the way back
[cello swells beneath last line]
[Instrumental Break]
[cello sustained, rain returns beneath sparse guitar]
[Verse 4]
I made a recording of a thing already passing
It disappeared, and then it didn't disappear
A coin returned to a pocket I had emptied
The Geist I had let go of — turned up here
[Final Chorus]
This is the holding and the going
The map you're standing on
You only see the shape of it
The moment that it's gone
[Outro]
[rain steady, vocal softens, cello low and held]
Now the ducks are flapping water from their wings
The day arrives when dreams are gone
The holding and the going
The holding and the going on
Detail
The song "The Holding and the Going" is a meditation on the duality of dream and waking, the illusion of continuity, and the fragile nature of identity in a world where reality and memory blur. It begins with a quiet, almost reverent tone, as the narrator describes waking in the rain at five-twenty, a time of transition, of a moment before the world fully opens. The image of a bicycle borrowed from Karen at an intersection in the dream is a powerful metaphor: the dream is not a place, but a passage, a moment of transition. The dream is not a dream, but a reality that has become a dream. It is a moment of suspension, of a time before the waking, before the realization that it was not a dream, but a waking. The lyrics move into a more structured, almost scientific mode. The second verse introduces a laboratory setting, glass walls, centrifuges, a food stall in the corridor—this is a world of precision, of data, of observation. The dream is not a dream, but a laboratory, a place where things are observed, where the mind is not free, but constrained. The narrator is in a lab, not a dream, but a laboratory. The dream is not a dream, but a laboratory. The lab is not a dream, but a laboratory. The dream is not a dream, but a laboratory. The lab is not a dream, but a laboratory.
Cross-references
- Song of the Day (album)