The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
I'm standing on a stage
Of fear and self-doubt
It's a hollow play
But they'll clap anyway
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key
I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head
I'm living in an age
Whose name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key
My body is a
My body is a cage
We take what we're given
Just because you've forgotten
That don't mean you're forgiven
I'm living in an age
That screams my name at night
But when I get to the doorway
There's no one in sight
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key
Set my spirit free
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
I'm standing on a stage
Of fear and self-doubt
It's a hollow play
But they'll clap anyway
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key
I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head
I'm living in an age
Whose name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key
My body is a
My body is a cage
We take what we're given
Just because you've forgotten
That don't mean you're forgiven
I'm living in an age
That screams my name at night
But when I get to the doorway
There's no one in sight
My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key
Set my spirit free
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
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When I first heard this song on House I fell in love with it because it felt so haunting. To me its about being in a time where the world is moving so fast your forced into a corner and your happiness, spontaneity, and passion is stuffed inside to keep up. In essence making your body a cage. Also you may have the things that mean everything to you but you cant enjoy them, and if people just use their heads and realize its okay to take a break and slow down once in a while then their lives could be better.
I've never been one to pick apart a song line by line, being a song-writer myself, when I write, it varies where things come from. Knowing the band, Win being an American (Arcade Fire duh), very much the philosopher....I can say honestly this song cannot be picked apart. The entire meaning is quite clear. To be frozen in fear, to look down at one's body crippled in fear, sickness, disability, etc., one couldn't help but find themselves locked in a 'cage', and that part is simple. Being a heart patient, very ill most of my life, AND dealing with anxiety issues, this song is quite literal. I find myself many times fighting to find words that no longer hold meaning to others, ideas that others cannot fathom. The life I once knew, and the person I once was, is long gone now. I have but one freedom awaiting me, death. Don't mean to be depressing sounding as the song in musical form finds crescendos, etc., and there is always beauty in pain and pain in beauty, or as once said, truth beauty, beauty truth by Keats.....I sit here with the one I love and yet he has felt alone for years since my heart and other illnesses kicked in...what we have sought since then has been right in front of us and we've been dancing all along, just not the one we had dreamed. The sleeper must awaken.
I interpret the song as being about wanting to commit suicide in order to get out of the body.
I, too, heard this song on House. So haunting and SO powerful. Along with this I've heard San Jacinto, and if the rest of his music is anything like either of those two songs, alksdjfal;shdg;ab
I interpret this song about someone with an eating disorder, mostly anorexia. it may be because i have an ED and i can find some sort of relation.
I feel this song is about someone who is a paraplegic or someone who can’t move anymore but their brain is still sane and they’re depressed because they can’t do what they once could and they want to use their mind but it’s hard because their body won’t let them speak and I feel like at the end they’re tired of life being a prisoner in their own body and they’re pleading to be set free :(
It’s depressing to me because my Nana got a kind of dementia where she lost control of her body before she lost her mind and I can’t imagine how terrible that would have been for her as she was a prisoner in her own body...losing the ability to hold things, walk, sit, feed herself etc..while still being sane. :(
In the bible there is an allegory of a wedding, and "a wedding" with god - a commitment to him (and of course - love and connection). This song reminds me a situation that called "ad klot" - which means in hebrew: "until the last breath" - a situation in which the person who believes in god and feel the harmony and spirituality, is yearning for the life after death - for being able to experience the soul solely, purely. This situation is forbidden, for a person to want it i mean.. he have to want to be where he is (in this life). Not in a way that means that if person experience this feeling - we should kill him or something (of course not), but it means it's forbidden, and any action or thought is between god and the person himself. The reason it is forbidden is that the religious jewish people know that if god puts you in some place, it means you can handle the situation well, even if you find it hard to believe, so you should trust him and remember he wants your best. So this song reminds me of this situation, which is not simple because you have so many times you feel you want to be all fulled with this huge light only, without the body's burden of materialistic plasures. "my body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love"...
Anywayyy ,wow that was long, these lines: "I'm living in an age that calls darkness light" - also connected to this world that "screams my name at night, But when I get to the doorway, There's no one in sight" - materialism, control, pride, shiningness, glory, accusations, competitivenes... when i get to the doorway there's no one in sight, there is nothing really in those things... kinds of illusions, lies we have to deal with, and break it with reason. Beautiful and hurting song.
I think this song is about a person who has been severely hurt by someone they love and is mentally refusing to forget and forgive and to get back together. The body wants to be with the lover but the mind is being stubborn avoiding the chances of possibly being hurt again.
Basically, the body is keeping the emotions locked up as if it were a cage which is being controlled by the mind.