Destination

Now that I'm older and am starting to feel all that "the world is going to Hell in a handbasket" stuff, this song makes more sense to me. IMO, Kilbey was either looking ahead to that day, or he knew someone who had similar feelings, and decided to put his own spin on it.

Starting with Heyday, and working all the way through part of Priest = Aura, Kilbey seemed to write a lot of songs with a critical eye on things like progress and patterns of human folly. This song is especially chock full of little observations about and barely veiled jabs at the source of a person's growing cynicism and disillusionment.

Inevitably, however, this critical view turns inward as well. "Destination" as a recurring word can be taken many ways here, and all the points made can turn out to be metaphoric, subconsciously or not. Every element of this person's life is now seen for what it is--misplaced faith in a religion (I'm guessing something with a confessional element, such as Catholicism); too much preoccupation with business matters at the expense of real human connections; the illusion of a safe home in the suburbs shattered by the discovery of a dark secret and its evidence; the realization of the evil behind an enterprise in which the person once actively participated; the turning toward substitutes for all that is lacking; and most of all, the impending death of the person.

All this unraveling, and this sudden sight on the futility or insidiousness of a life gone by and meaning nothing...and without any more faith in the religion or enterprise, there is likely no more sense of salvation from a judgment. Destination starts to unfold, and looks kinda bleak.

I can imagine the band's record label moguls pulling their hair out over the idea that a record, especially one that they're banking on to be a hit in some way, would start off with a song like this.