When I first heard this song, I was searching for Jesus Christ and belonged to a Catholic charismatic group. At that same time, I came across a Christian tract entitled, you guessed it… FREE RIDE! It was about acceptIng Jesus Christ and a “ FREE RIDE to eternal life. THIS has always been the meaning of the song for me. The timing of the song and the appearance in my life of that tract was much more than coincidental. And, furthermore, over the years, God has used the song at just the right time to build me up. Different...

When I first heard this song, I was searching for Jesus Christ and belonged to a Catholic charismatic group. At that same time, I came across a Christian tract entitled, you guessed it… FREE RIDE! It was about acceptIng Jesus Christ and a “ FREE RIDE to eternal life. THIS has always been the meaning of the song for me. The timing of the song and the appearance in my life of that tract was much more than coincidental. And, furthermore, over the years, God has used the song at just the right time to build me up. Different strokes for different folks. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I came here to read others' thoughts about this beautiful song. I have some thoughts of my own.

I came here to read others' thoughts about this beautiful song. I have some thoughts of my own.

But first, let's get the lyrics up, eh?

But first, let's get the lyrics up, eh?

[The version above is full of holes. When I try to edit the lyrics (to fill in yawning elipses), this site insists I "must be logged in" - which I am.

[The version above is full of holes. When I try to edit the lyrics (to fill in yawning elipses), this site insists I "must be logged in" - which I am.

When I agree to log in again (though my name appears top right), it takes me to some other page, inviting me to view random songs.

When I agree to log in again (though my name appears top right), it takes me to some other page, inviting me to view random songs.

When I search for Commune, it takes me back here but still insists I "must be logged in to edit" - which I am.]

So here, in the comments, are the full lyrics as I hear them.

Someone please put them in.

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COMMUNE

by Roy Harper

I thought I heard the sound of my name

And I looked back down behind me

And with hair like the ripened wheat she came

Sure as the west wind to find me

And just for a moment I wished my life

To see our friends all around us

And I turned to her but I held my breath

In the far Norwegian mountains

For there we stood, two children of spring

As everything seemed to be gleaming

Her looking breathless clean out of my mind

And me with my crazy dreaming

To think of my friends underneath the same roof

In one common destination

When all we do is remain aloof

Like we have no close relation

[Chorus 1]

And love is my torment

And I'll take when I can

But I'll give in the moment

When you are my woman and I am your man

And I watched her makin' her first daisy chain

As her nipples hung hard and suggestive

And naked, gnat-bitten we drifted the plain

In the hazy desert of sensation

And we dreamed of all the loves we'd known

And we never never thought of the sorrow

With forelocks wound over primrose down

In the wood by the empty long barrow

Two silver greenflies to flicker the backdropping lush

Of the emerald springtime

To lust for a moment in love of another's dust

On a dragonfly's wing

[Chorus 2]

And love is no torment

For we'll give when we can

And we'll live in the moment

When you are my woman and I am your man

And the blackcap sings and the forest rings

With the nettles tall around me

With shafts of sun and moving things

And poems fast and slowly

And fantasies of luscious thirst

For new lust and fresh waters to seek it

Like diamonds set in realities

Of skies drawn back in secret

But somewhere out there with my heart in her care

And her prayers in the breezes that caught them

She sits like the earth as I fly to her arms

Like the showering yellows of autumn

[Chorus 3]

And love is no torment

For we'll give when we can

And we'll live in the moment

When she is my woman and I am her man

IDK if this is related to his breaking up with his ex-GF JJ. Gonson, which, as far as I know, was reluctant to let Elliott go...

IDK if this is related to his breaking up with his ex-GF JJ. Gonson, which, as far as I know, was reluctant to let Elliott go...

Possibly it refers to when Gonson was still hurt by Elliott's rejection so she tried to send the message that she was better off with another relationship.

Possibly it refers to when Gonson was still hurt by Elliott's rejection so she tried to send the message that she was better off with another relationship.

Anyway, this is a great song to talk about those kinds of difficult ruptures where you give up and one of the people in the relationship is that kind of self-attention ho*s that wants to spit on your face how much they are better off without the other... but then the cold answer and the most logical one is "who TF cares".

This song is absolutely brilliant. The lyrics are appropriately generic enough so that different people see distinct, oftentimes deeply personal, meanings in it; it depicts a person in a incredibly fragile position, suffering from an unamed evil, bellowing that he/she will do something nasty about it but incapable of escaping a terrible ordeal (which is also something quite different from the usual output of Metallica). This is the rock'n'roll equivalent to the Book of Job, or the final moments of Christ on the cross (... "So tell me why you've chosen me"). I keep coming back to it on difficult...

This song is absolutely brilliant. The lyrics are appropriately generic enough so that different people see distinct, oftentimes deeply personal, meanings in it; it depicts a person in a incredibly fragile position, suffering from an unamed evil, bellowing that he/she will do something nasty about it but incapable of escaping a terrible ordeal (which is also something quite different from the usual output of Metallica). This is the rock'n'roll equivalent to the Book of Job, or the final moments of Christ on the cross (... "So tell me why you've chosen me"). I keep coming back to it on difficult times.

The biggest problem about the song supposedly being about civil rights is the fact that that angle wasn't mentioned or brought up until decades after the fact. If it was about the plight of black people it was never discussed by McCartney at the time or even for years and years after. I get that Brits call women birds and you could easily make the case that it is about civil rights and wanting to be free, but I'm saying none of that was considered until many, many years later. When McCartney acknowledges that it is about...

The biggest problem about the song supposedly being about civil rights is the fact that that angle wasn't mentioned or brought up until decades after the fact. If it was about the plight of black people it was never discussed by McCartney at the time or even for years and years after. I get that Brits call women birds and you could easily make the case that it is about civil rights and wanting to be free, but I'm saying none of that was considered until many, many years later. When McCartney acknowledges that it is about civil rights I see that as revisionist history. Sounds good and makes himself look even better. I love the song, McCartney and The Beatles- but there is no record of its meaning until years, even decades after the fact.