Shooting shark is a poignant tale of the surrendering of essential parts of one's self in the context of romantic love and relationships. All human interactions involve a process of give and take, compromise, setting boundaries and taking a hard line (which can involve the brutal domination of another's psyche) or making it clear in thought, feeling and action that serious interpersonal consequences will occur if particular lines are crossed. This is the context in which the lyrics of this song unfold. The writer laments that the relationship has cost him dearly, drained him of spirit, crushed dreams of intimacy, connection and love. Lost, forlorn and alone, he wanders into the domain of a psychic, and the magic man unfolds the cards in front of him, (but every face had your face). The magic man need not possess any real powers other than the insight of interpersonal pain to register the glaringly obvious discontent on the man's face. ("You need help my friend," "Obviously" comes the reply). His perseveration on the power she has over him dominates every waking thought, and he "is sick of hauling her love around." So dominated by her relationship, it feels as if some Karmic debt is being paid, "Like last life's nursery rhyme" and the author must throw off the "chains" this relationship imposes upon him. He gives away her gifts in a vain attempt to purge her from his mind (rings, phone calls, pictures and birds that sing) but he is still weighed down with the realization that he had entered into this relationship of his own free will, and that in giving away this things to reclaim his freedom, these are hollow gestures that do not provide any measure of comfort or restoration of his battered spirit. The magic man again informs him that love is a double edged sword, and that "he must accept the chains of loving." What binds us to another person weighs us down, for their weaknesses become our burden's to bear. If they do not manage these traits of thinking, feeling and behaving, we are condemned to join them in their own personal prison. (Hell is not a place in this context, but a state a mind or dimension of being.) Three times he tries to break free, until it pulls the very moisture from his bones. His message fails upon deaf ears, for she cannot change enough to join him on his life's journey (for the train runs straight through her heart, and weighs him life a stone.) He ends the relationship on the fourth attempt, and walks away, for there "is nothing left to say." In the end his love, understanding, attempts at communication, gifts. Everything failed. He must save himself and move on.