We Both Go Down Together

In another case of too many good bands bypassing Charlotte for Asheville, The Decemberists will be playing at The Orange Peel on Friday, September 30. Road trip. I've been listening quite a bit to Picaresque, and while I don't think there's a single track that rivals "Legionnaire's Lament," there are several standout tracks, including "Infanta," "Sixteen Military Wives," "Sporting Life," and "The Engine Driver." [MP3]. But the one that I keep returning to  - because of the lyrics, which is rare for me - is "We Both Go Down Together." In part, the lyrics are:

I found you, a tattooed tramp
A dirty daugher from the labour camps
I laid you down on the grass of a clearing
You wept but your soul was willing

Good lyric, but doesn't exactly sound like a consensual relationship. Then, after a chorus, the next verse:

Meet me on my vast veranda
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying

So a murder-suicide, okay. But "untouched"? That's the part I don't quite get. Maybe I'm just not reading it quite right. I've never been into analyzing lyrics (I often think of lyrics as optional, at times distracting from melody, and at best, a nice complement or contrast to what's going on musically), but The Decemberists can give Elvis Costello a run for the money on the SAT verbals. Their best certainly excels at effortlessly evoking an historical and nautical setting effortlessly within the context of intelligent pop.