Song Meaning
The narrator recalls a past encounter with someone he met when she was young and he was a penniless artist. His early work was surreal and imaginative, depicting a snail stealing a child and horses flying at night. These fantastical images, born from a time of financial struggle, seem to represent a potent, perhaps idealized, memory.
The core of the song lies in the persistent, almost haunting, remembrance of this past. The repeated refrain, "I still remember grass of golden color / I still carry, carry your pictures," emphasizes how these images and the person they're linked to remain vivid. The golden grass and the "pictures" he carries are not just memories; they are tangible remnants of a significant, formative experience.
The most striking aspect is the narrator's artistic vision, which blends the mundane with the magical. He painted a snail stealing a child, a bizarre and unsettling image, and horses that fly, a classic symbol of freedom and fantasy. This imaginative power is then projected onto the present, with the narrator vowing to paint a talking tree and a fairy tale where the subject of his art is the person he remembers.
This lyrical construction creates a powerful emotional resonance by linking artistic creation with enduring personal memory. The fantastical elements aren't just flights of fancy; they're the very fabric of a cherished past that the narrator continues to carry and recreate. The lyrics suggest that art, for him, is intrinsically tied to the preservation and reimagining of profound personal connections.