This song is a conversation across time between a present-day, reasonably happy and well-adjusted protagonist and their pseudo-suicidally-depressed earlier self.
The mature version reaches back over the decades to hopefully assure the younger version that circumstances can and will get better. But there’s a subtext that darkness—and the neurochemical reality of depression—lurks in the shadows, and can return unexpectedly if not managed.
If you want to hear just the song without the video, you may find it on Apple Music, Spotify, or CD Baby. (It may also be available on other streaming music services.)
Pictures from Bridges
A million years ago you grappled with your plight
The existential pain of a life
The Great Unknown was nigh
And complications were running high
You contemplated darkening night with your flight
But something turned you back to the light
A premonition of the hope and joy that were to come
Your people and your purpose here
Now, like a tree, you know
Seasons are the way it goes
Riding out your storm while you sing to the breeze
A lovesong that you learned from the night
Pictures from bridges overgrown
Memory of a future unknown
Song of a million years ago
Painted in a cave in Lascaux
Pictures from bridges made of stone
Self-extraction overthrown
Pictures from bridges haunt me