This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
He moves efficiently
Beyond security
Great opportunity awaits
Airport fluorescent
Creature of habit
Labored breathing and shallow skin
Recycled air
Moving sidewalks
Great opportunity blinks
Great opportunity blinks
Great opportunity blinks
Great opportunity blinks
Discounted
The people mover
The people mover
Discounted
Beyond security
Great opportunity awaits
Airport fluorescent
Creature of habit
Labored breathing and shallow skin
Recycled air
Moving sidewalks
Great opportunity blinks
Great opportunity blinks
Great opportunity blinks
Great opportunity blinks
Discounted
The people mover
The people mover
Discounted
Lyrics submitted by xpankfrisst, edited by seasideisme
Airportman Lyrics as written by Michael Mills Peter Buck
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
Mountain Song
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
The primary inspiration for Radiohead's Kid A, and it's a doozy...R.E.M. really nails the mood "melancholy" with this song. Stipe is watching a man who's life moves through other people, but who otherwise is completely invisible...a very sad place to be indeed.
closest REM has ever come to a bonafide Radiohead song. definitely their most paranoia-inducing output ever.
everything's antiseptic and plastic and dull and you can just feel the tension burning. "great opportunity blinks"- neon sign/screens in airport?
would've loved to see this when they performed it live...
Yeah, everyone pretty much nailed the meaning about a business man.
But what I find so remarkable about this song is the music. It's so different and moody, and totally takes your mind away to a different place. I think that the music is supposed to reflect the mood of the narrator: trapped in a dazed mood where he's so bored that he's just kind of daydreaming. I also think that it was a really risky but great way to start the album, since it's so different from the R.E.M. that people are used to.
For the disillusioned professionals theme, now that I think about it, there are a lot of songs and references to that on Up. I think that Stipe likes to write narratives about people in certain situation for the purpose of showing that everyone feels the same way, no matter who. Like in "Sad Professor", it's easy for anyone who's ever been hopeless to relate to the character, even if they arn't professors. I really like that angle, instead of just writing a bunch of biographical songs about himself, but creating fictional characters to represent certain emotions.
freewebs.com/thejakesite
the music itself is gorgeous, almost eno-esque in it's use of atmosphere. Very calming, seems oddly appropriate for airport music, ironic isn't it? I also like it because it's purty.
weird
This song was written in 1999 or something so it was NOT inspired by 9/11, but the first time I heard it afterwards it scared the sh*t out of me; struck me as almost prescient.
I can't listen to it anymore without thinking about the guys who hijacked the planes to fly into the WTC, "moving efficiently beyond security," and their sense of "great opportunity" within that suicide mission (i.e., blindly serving their leader, getting into heaven with all the attendant virgins, etc.). "The people mover discounted"--I could read that line as the appropriation of the airplane as weapon, discounting all the people on it. Even the foggy ambience of it, the lack of clarity of the lyrics, strike me as suitably horrific.
(yogaboat, I like your interpretation, and given some of the other stuff on that album about disillusioned professionals--e.g., "Sad Professor," "Daysleeper"--I think it could be right on target. Disillusionment in general seems to be a big theme of the album, now that I think about it.)
The "people movers" part is probably talking about those flat, escalator-like conveyor belts in airports nicknamed PeopleMovers.
But yeah, definately about a businessman.
"Creatures of habit"
"Recycled air"
"Moving sidewalks"
"Great opportunity blinks Great oppurtunity blinks discounted"
definitly about buisness corporate mentality and america - like "money is power" dullness that is spreading all around the world ...
no matter where America, Canada, France, Serbia, Poland, China, Saturn, Jupiter ...
I'm a teacher candidate bound to start teaching in 2012 at an inner city school, and this song always makes me think of how few inner-city students actually graduate...let alone go to college. It has a strong message about how the only ones who succeed are the ones who break the stereotypes and molds, and become great people in their own right...especially now, when you need a degree in business to straighten up toilet paper at Target...
Those who break the mold end up successful, and those who work hard end up happy. There are great opportunities out there, BUT only if you grab the bull by the horns and pull!
Airports are strange places, everything is on the move, nothing stands still. The businessmen are maybe the only people that really fits in there. They move efficiently beyond security and are driven by great opportunities that lie ahead. They are a creatures of habit, they´ve done this thing thousand times, it has become a everyday thing.