Just my two cents...
Sheryl, that was an interesting interpretation, and I agree with a lot of it. However, I see it as more introspective and one-sided than you do, with, as jeffyjo noted, lots of remorse.
If you look at the last verses:
"But songs of love should not be sung where staying is not planned/And foolish I would climb once more a tree too weak to stand", and connect that to the prior verse "The price of lust has risen till the ceiling will not stand", it looks to me that GL is reproaching his own weakness, letting his lust foolishly overtake his good sense, plunging him once again into meaningless, short-term couplings, with no long-term benefit. He has to pay outlandishly (in the personal sense--although let's not forget he had a child from a short-term fling, did he not?) for what is ultimately untenable--a tree too weak to stand. The tree image makes sense in this case--instead of taking things slowly, letting the "roots" of the relationship take hold, letting the tree grow slowly into something strong that can protect him, he's gotten himself into something too fast and for the wrong reasons, and which then can't support itself and collapses.
More to say, but I've got to run...
DQ
|