There’s a snow buntings story. Two snow buntings fall in love and promise never to leave each others. One migration season, one bunting is injured by hunters and she pleads and urges her lover to migrate with the others. At first he refuses but eventually he leaves. Before winter is over, he returns and finds her frozen body in the snow. After thinking, he realizes that the reason he has left is not because he is listening to her; it is that he is afraid and doesn't want to die with her. He feels guilty for abandoning her. He sits quietly in the snow beside her, guarding her until he dies.

This song is also about two snow buntings. Just that one bunting has broken the promise and left leaving the other bunting to long for her.