Spindrift: Background

“Spindrift,” in which the narrator shouts at waves crashing against the shore, is written in the form of a lover’s quarrel, although the quarrel isn’t between two people but between the narrator and the world.

“What am I supposed to say? / Where are the words to answer you / When you talk that way? / Words that fly against the wind and waves.”

Neil says in his essay The Game of Snakes & Arrows that he got the idea from Robert Frost’s epitaph, “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” He used the same device in the lyrics for “Good News First.”

Musically, the piece is divided into two parts. In the first, Alex’s guitar evokes the idea that it’s coming at the quarrel from the side of the crashing waves, the uncaring world that could easily crush the lover against the rocks. In the second, his guitar shifts to the perspective of the gentle wind that carries the lover safely off the rocks: “Where is the wind that will carry me / A little closer to you?”—Rob Freedman, Rush Vault

More about “Spindrift”

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