Boy With A Coin

This song featured on my blog is called 'Boy with A Coin' by Iron & Wine (Sam Beam).

It's a soft catchy song but it has a rather sad meaning.

Here's the lyrics:

A boy with a coin he found in the weeds
With bullets and pages of trade magazines
Close to a car that flipped on the turn
When God left the ground to circle the world

A girl with a bird she found in the snow
Then flew up her gown and that’s how she knows
If God made her eyes for crying at birth
Then left the ground to circle the earth

A boy with a coin he crammed in his jeans
Then making a wish he tossed in the sea
Walked to a town that all of us burn
When God left the ground to circle the world

I came across an explanation of this song by Manikay and I think his viewpoint is rather interesting.
Do read on!

to me, this song goes to show a lot of things.
firstly, the boy finding something valuable (a coin) at the site of a carcrash. the first thing that came to my mind was that he'd acquired something innocently at the expense of someone else, the people involved in the carcrash. it goes to show the frugal nature of living; something of worth at the expense of another.
it also brought to my mind how humans, as a collective, have desensitized, and can't be brought to feel the pain and suffering of others. the reference to bullets and trade magazines shows two heavy mainstays in our world; the bullets representing violence, and the trade magazines, commercialism and the dependence on/obsession with money.
i think "God left the ground to circle the world" is an expression on behalf of God, painting him in a human light, stating how he loses his faith in people when they become obsessed with their selfish needs and wants. the car flipping is a consequence of God no longer watching over the people due to their selfishness. the coin may also be symbolic of something that makes him forget all the violence and economic strife in the world.

the second verse presents a much harsher image, though it is put with eloquence and subtlety.
i think Hag has hit the hammer clean on it's head with the reference to the girl and the "bird" she found signifying rape, which is pretty much the most severe loss of innocence a girl can face.
in this stanza, the reference to the eyes being made for crying and God's absence is to show the girl's resentment to God, who she feels deserted him right when she was born, leaving her to suffer through the trials and tribulations of life with no one to look out for her.

the last stanza refers to the same boy who found the coin in the first verse, and shows a bitterness so profound that even that something precious he found in this life (the coin) is no longer the same valuable it was to him.
hence the rough treatment when sam says the coin was "crammed in his jeans". disappointed that nothing the boy wanted came of the coin, he threw it away into the sea at the cost of a wish. this is symbolic of him giving it up in a show of repentance, hoping that his giving up the coin will make the situation better.
i think the last couplet shows that the boy is ready to accept whatever is to come, hence his walking back to the town that all of "us" are burning, again symbolic of the fact that humans, as a collective, are laying the world to waste.
keeping in tune with the previous verses, the absence of God is again mentioned, the link again established that it is because of a lack of that something good (even though God is absent, his presence to me is shown in a benevolent light. that he is absent is how his lack of affection manifests itself) that people live their lives with reckless abandon.

the underlying theme of this song is ultimately the loss of innocence and the absence of Godliness, interwoven with a social commentary that deals with the two concepts intermittently.
Brilliantly done.
I'm addicted to this song, and i don't know when it'll be over.