The narrator reflects on the passage of time since their last conversation about end times and cities being washed away. They find themselves in a waiting room with restless people, dreaming of broken watches and feeling like a priest or a bird amidst a landscape of dead-eyed boulevards and metal herd. They speak of pecking faces off clocks, pondering golden shores, carnival rising, and meeting people in November, sleeping on poor man pallets, and feeling the heart of the Department of the Interior breathing faster.

Meaning of "November" by Gabriel Kahane

The lyrics of "November" paint a picture of a bleak and unsettling world, where the narrator grapples with themes of time, decay, and existential uncertainty. The imagery of flooded cities, bloodless halls, and restless people waiting in a delayed train station encapsulates a sense of dislocation and desolation. The broken watch symbolizes the fractured nature of time and memory, while the dream of pecking faces off clocks hints at a desire to escape the relentless passage of time. The references to a carnival, sunburned families, and a toy gun game store contrast sharply with the overall sense of foreboding and decay, suggesting a tension between moments of fleeting joy and the looming specter of mortality. The narrator's musings on the people they met in November and their experiences sleeping on blue blankets caked in sweat evoke a poignant sense of human vulnerability and transience. Overall, "November" conveys a haunting meditation on the passage of time, the fragility of human existence, and the search for meaning in a world marked by impermanence and decay.