Iron and Wine: Flightless Bird, American Mouth Meaning

Flightless Bird, American Mouth Lyrics

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 22nd 2012 !⃝

   I was a quick wet boy
   diving too deep for coins
   all of your streetlight
   eyes wide on my plastic toys
   (they were young, innocent)
   
   then when the cops closed the fair
   I cut my long baby hair
   (they matured and grew up)
   
   Stole me a dog-eared map
   called for you everywhere
   (they grew apart, she lost herself)
   
   Have I found you?
   Flightless bird
   jealous, weeping
   (will he ever find the old girl? Will she be damaged, changed?)
   
   
   
   Or lost you
   American mouth
   big pill looming
   (is the old girl gone, lost to drugs?)
   
   Now I'm a fat house cat
   nursing my sore blunt tongue
   (he is old and crabby and defeated after never finding his girl)
   
   Watching the warm poison rats
   curl through the wide fence cracks
   (watching evil seep into the world)
   
   P***ing on magazine photos
   (scorning celebrities and idols)
   
   those fishing lures
   in the cold and clean
   Blood of Christ mountain stream
   (drawing people away from God)
   
   Have I found you?
   flightless bird
   grounded, bleeding
   (Have I found you after all this time, even though you're damaged?)
   
   Or lost you
   American mouth
   (Is it not really you?)
   
   Big pill
   stuck going down
   (It is her, she finally quit doing drugs)

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 5th 2010 !⃝

   I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
   All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
   Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
   Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere (this is about a man who is in a relationship with 2 women...a rich woman and then a poor one. He is then forced to choose the rich one when she proposes to him...plus he wants ALOT of $$$. when he says "when the cops closed the fair"...it means the rich girl is "cop") (by the end he realizes that he is in love with the poor girl...and not the rich one and then he went out asking people if they seen the poor girl and eventually even looks for her too)
   
   Have I found you
   Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth
   Big pill looming (the flightless bird is the poor girl who is lost without him and he asked if the girl is gone forever(her american mouth is her lovely voice and maybe the sank he married has some type of accent. The poor girl is sad, and jealous. He asks if he has found her or lost her. The big pill looming is the "truth" that she is gone forever" and he must swallow it and get over it)
   
   Now I'm a fat house cat
   Nursing my sore blunt tongue
   Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks
   Pissing on magazine photos
   Those fishing lures thrown in the cold
   And clean blood of Christ mountain stream (he's at the mansion (years have passed) where he is pampered. when he says warm poisen rats he means his family...he kind of hates them (he definatly hates the wife) because he wants a family with that poor girl)(when he says fishing and the blood of Christ mountain stream he is talking bout how the poor girl was innocent and how he is now lurred into that)
   
   Have I found you
   Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth
   Big pill stuck going down (he thinks that the poor girl is most likely grounded to being depressed and is also bleeding out (meaning slowly dying)) by the end he stats that he will never get over her and the "truth" meaning the pill won't go down)
   
   
   
   
   yeah...this song is SAD if you think of it in that way =( =(

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   Rickk999

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jan 6th 2011 !⃝

   I have made a site that gives all the details of the meaning of Flightless Bird
   
   https://sites.google.com/site/flightlessbirddeciphered/
4. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 14th 2021 !⃝

   The cat is America's rulers. The bird is its people.
   They offer a bitter pill & the people won't swallow it, it sticks in their throat. The people have been grounded but not willingly. The magazine, pissed on, is an interpretation of the use of celebrities as puppets to control the minions.
   Religion is an escape from reality and is as diving into a deep pool of nothing, It's not real.
   etc etc
   
5. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Nov 23rd 2013 !⃝

   Sadly, yet another beautiful melody and production that has poorly written lyrics. Clearly not a professional songwriter, but a musician and producer type (95% of the population). Proof? Even if you can conjure up a meaning, it would be way too convoluted to be understandable but to the songwriter. Doesn't need to be you say? Then you are one of the 95%. If you could write profound lyrics (with or without double or hidden meanings), you would. Would a musician play a lesser riff? Would an arranger or producer put out a finished product that is of lesser quality than which they are capable?

Latest Articles

• 
  A new era for Millennial favorite, Linkin Park
• 
  Anime to watch for the soundtracks… and other reasons you’re undateable
• 
  Dolly, we need you
• 
  The Stranger Things Effect: How new media is drawing Gen Z and Alpha's attention to aging media
• 
  The most underrated soundtrack of the early 2000s
• 
  Buy the Soundtrack, Skip the Movie: Brainscan (1994)