To become is to do so in lieu of a destination; it is to depart and, by departure, to welcome what is other and not-yet. It is to welcome what is to come, to what comes, as the singer of 'a half-million murderers', of 'a long list of ironies' ('Meaulnes').
There are many songs about departure on Days in the Wake. In '(Thou Without) Partner', the singer sings of an apportionment and a leave-taking; the cookies have been cut, the severance has happened, and now it is time to leave '(adios fraternos'). He is leaving by night, the singer, even as he wonders that by leaving she (but who is she?) will return to him (when will she run to me?/ when will she come to me?). To leave is to receive and to receive is to change, to become.
This gives a clue to the meaning of departure on this album: it is a way of welcoming something. The cinematographer of the last song leaves the city and all that was good; 'And I walked away from everything I leaned on/ Only to find it's made of wood'; 'And I walked away from everything I lived for/ Only to find that everything had grown': these are the last lines of two verses. Note the singer does not say, like the narrator of Isherwood's book, 'I am a camera', but 'I am a cinematographer' - one who does not just photograph movement but allows movement to reveal itself to an audience.
It is by leaving that the cinematographer is the name of the singer and singing becomes cinematography. To depart is to do so as a cinematographer, as a singer. What comes by way of departure is only the movement of the world, its becoming. A movement heard as song. This is the departure that permitted Days of the Wake to be recorded. The leavetaking that was met by the coming of its songs.