Poetry Journal #10 - Set the Fire to The Third Bar

I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from A to where you'd 'B'
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I'd find your face
My fingers in creases of distant dark places

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've felt so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

After I have travelled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep it

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

-Snow Patrol

The song seems to be about the cold and lonely feeling of being a long way apart from someone you love and "we'd set the fire to the third bar" about the increased warmth you would feel if you were with them.

I love the clever use of double-meaning words and sounds in this song. For example "the distance from A to where you'd B" should be "be" but is referencing point A to point B, and she sound of the vowel "A" is not so different from how one would say "I" so it vocally sets the impression that there is distance between two people.

I also really enjoy how the "words" of men are "just noises" and yet, her words in his memory are "like music." It really paints a haunting picture. While I do not believe that the lover's object is dead, there is somewhat of a tone of death in the song's chorus. The speaker wants to lay down on "the cold ground" which is somewhat reminiscent of a grave. He also prays that "something picks me up, and lays me down in your warm arms." It almost seems as though he is soliciting a benevolent spirit to intervene and bring him into the afterlife where his love lives.

I've always been confused by the line "Set Fire to The Third Bar" which is also the title of the song. After much research, I'm assuming that it refers to old-fashioned style electric heaters which had a series of heat-emitting bars- the 1st bar would give you gentle heat, the second slightly higher, the third even warmer and so on. So if his love is still alive, it seems that he is asking for intense heat, intense love and passion between the two of them.