As Steven Wilson described it when introducing this song at my Porcupine Tree concert, the first half of this song is a love song, while the second half is this spacey instrumental.

Part I — “Winding Shot (Summer, 1981)”: This album is full of specifically sad love songs, but for the most part this is an exception, although there is this sense of longing, nostalgia, and perhaps even regret in the words “After all the time I spent with you, summer went away, and we just weren’t the same.” But as the lyric I chose for this song suggests, this section feels really cozy to me, like I’m dreaming, sleeping next to somebody I love…

Part II — “Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before it is Recycled”: The bassline. Just that alone. Well, that and the flute. I know I pretty much am ripping this from the song title, and the Heaven’s Gate tape sampled in the background, but this part sounds like what it’s like to float harmlessly through space (let’s ignore the fact that that is not how actually floating through space would go). Something like pure bliss.

Just a random note, but because of the time I discovered this album, this song reminds me a lot of Whittleton Creek in Hitman 2.