At least part of the song is actually about the Kennedy assasination. With the first verse being Neil's perspective on being a rock star, the key to the rest of the song is the line from the second verse "Eighteen years of american dream" . This line is the only concrete line in a song full of imagery and allegory. If is to be taken seriously (there is no reason to think otherwise) then the obvious 18 years would be the ones immediately after WW2, where the USA took on its role of dominant power of the democratic world: 1945-1963. I don't really understand the rest of that verse, but it does end with the line "Did you see HIM?" not "them" as in the 1st and 3rd verses. The third verse is ostensibly about a wedding. But caissons are used in funeral processions not wedding processions. So if you transpose funeral for wedding and black for white then the rest sort of follows. Coincidentally, sufferers of Addison's Disease of which Kennedy was one, tend to have darkened (brown) skin due to a hormone disorder.
At least part of the song is actually about the Kennedy assasination. With the first verse being Neil's perspective on being a rock star, the key to the rest of the song is the line from the second verse "Eighteen years of american dream" . This line is the only concrete line in a song full of imagery and allegory. If is to be taken seriously (there is no reason to think otherwise) then the obvious 18 years would be the ones immediately after WW2, where the USA took on its role of dominant power of the democratic world: 1945-1963. I don't really understand the rest of that verse, but it does end with the line "Did you see HIM?" not "them" as in the 1st and 3rd verses. The third verse is ostensibly about a wedding. But caissons are used in funeral processions not wedding processions. So if you transpose funeral for wedding and black for white then the rest sort of follows. Coincidentally, sufferers of Addison's Disease of which Kennedy was one, tend to have darkened (brown) skin due to a hormone disorder.