Song Meaning
The lyrics open with a disorienting question: was the visitor an angel, the wind, or a dream? This immediate ambiguity sets a tone of surreal memory, blurring the lines between reality and a profound, almost spiritual encounter. The narrator grapples with the unreality of a past moment, unsure if it was a divine visitation or a deeply felt hallucination. The repetition of "Was it you?" underscores this persistent uncertainty about the nature of the experience.
The core of the song seems to revolve around a lost, intense connection, possibly a past love. The narrator recalls shared, almost mythic experiences like swimming in fountains under northern stars and a hyperbolic "died in each others arms." These images suggest a relationship so consuming it felt like a matter of life and death, a peak emotional state. The refrain, "Remember and live forever / Remember to live for love," acts as both a plea and a directive, urging the preservation of this feeling and its underlying principle.
The contrast between the ecstatic past and the melancholic present is stark. The narrator has received old letters, but the recipient's address is now unknown, signifying a definitive separation. The fleeting glimpse of a stranger with familiar eyes highlights the lingering presence of the lost person in the narrator's consciousness, a ghost in the everyday. This moment of mistaken identity amplifies the sense of absence and the difficulty of moving on from such a powerful bond.
Ultimately, the lyrics capture the enduring power of a transformative relationship, even in its absence. The vivid, almost reckless abandon of shared moments – running through graveyards, dancing naked – speaks to a time of uninhibited living. The repeated call to "live for love" suggests that the memory of this connection, however uncertain its origin, provides a guiding principle for the narrator's present and future, a way to "live forever" through the intensity of that past experience.