Almond Eyes

A glimpse through a crowd, "piercing bright blue lights" and a glow "like angels," starts a love story that Brandon Lake tells from the far side of marriage. The narrator recalls a first kiss that "changed this foolish kid into a man" and the sense that everything he had prayed for his whole life finally made sense. Twice the chorus aches with the same wish: "I wish that time would slow down."

Family life fills the middle. Their sons "look just like you when you make them smile," and the couple admits they "prayed for wild boys" and got them. The bridge turns sober, because time keeps "ripping me apart" and moments "don't slow down to please the heart." The only answer the narrator finds is to cherish each one while it lasts.

The final verse looks past death. The last thing he asks to see before he dies is those almond eyes, "until we get to meet again in paradise," where he will "never have to look away." Children received as answered prayer, a request to count the days well, and hope of a heavenly reunion tie it to Psalm 127:3, Psalm 90:12 and Revelation 21:4. In the closing lines time finally does "slow down," and the longing resolves in eternity.