"When our column advanced, and we saw what we'd done, we were sure that we could never tell the folks back home," said my father to me, I had just turned sixteen, and we were walking from my school to his apartment alone. And he said, "You'd think the world you're in would always remain, but some worlds can just disappear. Some worlds you enter just for seconds at a time, and some last until you're forgiven.

When my mother and me take the drive into town, I can't tell if she's lost in thought or lost where we are. She turns the radio to 92 Star, where Ronnie Milsap sings what he would not have missed it for, and she says, "What do you think you're gonna do with your life?" And I say, "You've got to teach me to drive." She just laughs at that, and musses my hair, and says, "Kid, you're lucky to be alive."


Lyrics submitted by Forgiven

The World in 1984 song meanings
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    General Comment

    A beautiful retrospective snapshot of a time in life when I remember becomming aware of my mortality and sadness. There are indications that this is a time when the singer's family was falling apart and maybe when he began to look at his parents as people rather than just the construct of Mom and Dad.

    Forgivenon August 08, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    What’s it about ? in my humble literary opinion ? one word? - LOSS hmmm - Ok — parents are separated (eg-loss of family) and the 16 yr old kid is just starting to establish some sensibility of his(her?) place in the world (eg-loss of innocence)…. And the parents know that and reflect their acknowledgement of that development — and VIA their own personal loss - back at the kid in their own very different but equally profound and ultimately “equal” ways

    i reckon this first bit is about the father’s ruminations on his vietnam? war experience
    "When our column advanced, and we saw what we'd done, we were sure that we could never tell the folks back home," said my father to me, I had just turned sixteen, and we were walking from my school to his apartment alone. And he said, "You'd think the world you're in would always remain, but some worlds can just disappear. Some worlds you enter just for seconds at a time, and some last until you're forgiven.

    • ie. Watch what you do with your life kid

    The second bit is the mother’s more practical (female) expression of a similar “thing” When my mother and me take the drive into town, I can't tell if she's lost in thought or lost where we are. She turns the radio to 92 Star, where Ronnie Milsap sings what he would not have missed it for, and she says, "What do you think you're gonna do with your life?" And I say, "You've got to teach me to drive." She just laughs at that, and musses my hair, and says, "Kid, you're lucky to be alive."

    • ie. Whatever you do with your life kid, make it matter

    so loss runs all thru it including the milsap song — ie, that life is about losing stuff with every passing day, but there is always something useful left or built up despite — so HOPE is there at the end of it all

    JAAustraliaon August 18, 2013   Link

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