You dig down underground now
Through the soil, through the cooling clay
As the din fades above you
You’re moving
You’re secret
You’re nowhere
It’s all good
And no lights lead you onwards
No signs point you on your way
Just earth in all directions
It’s endless
It’s mapless
No compass
No north star
You’re all gone ‘cause they can’t find you
You’re lost ‘cause they don’t know the way
They blame themselves they blame each other
They’re angry
They’re sorry
They’re worried
You don’t care
The shovels scrape somewhere up there
They just want to know if you’re OK
Morse code tapped with hammers
You hear it
You know it
Ignore it
You’re on your way
Oh, but at some point you’ve gotta come up for air
You wipe the rocks and mud and dirt out of your hair
You’re blind and queasy with a growing sense of despair
You don’t know anyone
You look around trying to find someone you know
You put your hand up in the air
Just kinda wave hello
But if they do care, oh, they’re not letting it show
This can’t be new to you
There’s a feeling coming back
Connected by a thread
Pulling at your hands like a spider web
Like a kite that isn’t there…
If it’s a life of possibilities
That pulls you away that claws and tears
And challenges you to stay, well, then
If it’s a life of possibilities
That you’ve gotta live then
Don’t be surprised when they don’t remember you
Or simply don’t want to, yea yea yea…


Lyrics submitted by 66exeter

A Life of Possibilities song meanings
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    General Comment

    I take this song somewhat differently. The main character is someone who feels like he has to go out on his own to be an individual. In order to maintain "a life of possibilities" he cannot be limited by his old friends and family.

    He maintains his individualism in opposition to his old acquaintances who try to reestablish relations with him. Yet, in the end, they get tired of the unrewarding effort and move on.

    It is at this point, when the "hammers" stop tapping that the main character realizes that he is alone and starts to panic. He resurfaces and tries to find all his old friends, but he's been gone so long and not responded to them that they don't remember him.

    I think this song brilliantly makes the point that, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, the American and Western ideal of self-sufficient individualism is unsustainable. What good is a life of possibilitites if you've got no one to share it with?

    distopiandreamguyon May 09, 2004   Link

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