The Kingfisher is a small bird that symbolizes peace and joy in many traditions.

Written as a pastoral, “Kingfisher” features a narrator who is questioning her place in the world, questioning where she might find the peace she seeks. Twined together are images of peace (“A pup in the constant barley”, “Like a little child loves a little lamb”) and images of destruction (“And your gut was a serpent coiling”, “There’s blood on the eye, unlace the glove”).

In addition to analyzing the disparate concepts of peace and destruction, she discusses the things that come from their combination: Obsidian, shrinking ash, us. It’s on the very day of our birth that we “commence with our dying.” That opposition, the balance of violence and love, is what the narrator seeks to suss out; “kingfisher,” she implores at the end, “lie with the lion.” Peace, find your balance with destruction.

Musically, it recalls medieval compositions, both in its aesthetics and in its heavy use of polyphony. The Harpsichord that picks up the melody at the end drives this aesthetic home. In channeling that period, the title of the piece evokes, through pun, the Arthurian legend of the Fisher King, a man constantly on the verge of death, kept alive only by the holy grail.

Too, there are images that evoke the destruction of Pompeii, used here, I think, to comment on people’s misguided focuses. At the beginning of the song, as she stands beneath ashes that, by the end, will come to leave her “bound and calcified”, she wonders who she’ll love. As the air bears down and destroys her food, she is standing speechless. Speechless until it’s too late for speech to make change.

This song also brings up wanting to find love again, but being afraid of the terror (i.e. the same kind of hurt and pain she faced with her previous lover) returning, which is in line with the peaceful vs. violent imagery she contrasts throughout this song.