The feeling that we get with many of Ola Podrida's songs is that a lot of the effects from causes have already been written, in concrete and in blood, but those aren't the ones that should be of any concern. So what. They can just lie there. We should forget them.
All of the effects that we should take a close look at are the ones that are burning quietly and subtly. They won't draw any attention for they're not fully formed yet. They can't be. They are still waiting for their puppeteer. They're embryonic, barely here - just particles of what could be. There's been no determination about what they'll look like, where they'll go or how they'll reveal themselves, when the time comes. They are stationed at the gate just before the abyss and they're only slightly imposing. They expose our fears and comment on our tiptoeing, or our cowardice to act and live - however it's seen from the outside.
It's more our apprehension than anything that's being questioned, but the way that songwriter David Wingo writes his characters into his songs, they are candidly dealing with these things. They are intentionally or unintentionally backing themselves into corners and then plotting the best ways to get themselves out of them. They are diving back into their pasts and pulling out insights that they never thought they would encounter. They are constantly finding themselves faced with new addendums that they never expected. These are patient people, waiting things out, tirelessly searching for the clarity that they need to rest easier. They are people waiting for their wayward kisses. They are waiting for the night to speak to them - even if it's a slurred, indecipherable conversation, even if it's a curt murmur of peculiar portent.
Wingo sings here about being trapped in the belly of the lion and trying to find a way to breathe through its nose - to essentially use the offending, carnivorous lion's own breathing apparatus to stay alive and hopefully escape in due time. It's quite cunning, if improbable, but it's the effort that matters. What if it works? What if the escape is made? What if the two people in the song, "The Closest We Will Ever Be," are wrong? What if something miraculous occurs and they are wrong? What if all of the questions of the night are answered and what if everyone gets their kisses, or makes it home safely? It's all out there, like an odor-less gas leak, psyched for a match strike.