| Alice Cooper – I Am Made Of You Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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A little weird hearing Autotuned Alice, but I really like this song. Alice is the master of doing subtle Christian songs (well, more subtle than most Christian bands I've heard examples of, anyway). This is the opening song on the new "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" CD, and listening to it today, the first thing that popped into my head was, "This is another of Alice's Christian-without-ever-overtly-mentioning Christianity songs". If you listen to the song and envision the singer singing it to God, it makes a lot of sense. I'm not religious personally, but I've always liked Alice's way of reconciling shock rock and his obviously strong faith. Reading the lyrics to the rest of the CD it doesn't sound like he continues the Christian theme throughout the whole album, which is fine with me, but this is a good song and a good opener. |
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| Pink Floyd – High Hopes Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This is my favorite Pink Floyd song, even though I find it profoundly depressing. It's a good thing I like depressing songs, because this one takes the cake. The way I see it, this song is from the point of view of someone older (maybe middle aged, maybe a little older than that) who is looking back on a life that is, by all conventional measures, a successful one, but yet the person feels unfulfilled because he has left the freedom and wonder of youth behind in order to pursue what he perceived as "success" (in the adult sense). Only when it's too late does he realize that this "success" rang false, and that he has lost the magic of his childhood days forever. "Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young In a world of magnets and miracles our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary The ringing of the division bell had begun" When you are a child, the world of adults is inexplicable, full of magic and all sorts of things you don't understand (magnets and miracles). What child doesn't want to hurry out of what he perceives as the limitations of childhood to get to be a "grown-up" and get to do all the things that kids aren't allowed to do? This is a bit of a reach, but I could interpret "the ringing of the division bell" in this context as the beginning of when the child starts moving away from childhood and into the world of adults (puberty, most likely). In other words, the "division bell" between childhood and adulthood, when the pure unfettered freedom of the child gives way to adult responsibilities. "There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps Running before time took our dreams away Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground To a life consumed by slow decay" Some children (and even some adults) manage to stay a step ahead of adulthood by retaining some of their childlike wonder, but it's a rare person who can maintain this for long in the face of everything the world has to throw at us. Eventually almost everyone is "tied to the ground," forced to take on responsibility and "follow the script"--marriage, children, mortgage, job, "maturity," and eventual infirmity and death. None of us get out of this alive, kids. This verse also reminds me of "Time," from "Dark Side of the Moon": "And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death." "The grass was greener The light was brighter With friends surrounded The night of wonder" This is the idealization of childhood--something that just about everybody who had a half-decent one does fairly often. We don't remember the bad stuff--all we remember is how wonderful it was to have all that freedom. "Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again Dragged by the force of some inner tide." I'm surprised nobody commented on this yet (at least I missed if they did), but "Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us" implies to me that those bridges are burning--and burning bridges means you can't go back. The narrator is looking with longing back to a time that he can still glimpse but can never return to, no matter how much he wants to. The inexorable course of life ("the force of some inner tide") keeps dragging him forward, closer to old age and death. "Steps taken forward" might imply his attempts to break out of the rut, but it's always easier to "sleepwalk back again"--fall back on old habits and let the tide carry him along. In some ways, it's crueler for types like the narrator--those who can glimpse what they have lost, as opposed to those who have left it firmly behind without ever looking back. "At a higher altitude with flag unfurled We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed-of world" This is where I get my interpretation that the narrator is/was "successful" in his life--that he achieved fame or wealth or success in his chosen career. He has reached the thing he dreamed of as a child, but now all he can think of is that he'd rather go back to the world of that child and cast all the so-called "success" away. "Encumbered forever by desire and ambition There's a hunger still unsatisfied Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon Though down this road we've been so many times." (Almost) fully assimilated into the adult world, the narrator has been encumbered by "adult" priorities--desire, ambition, greed, acquisitiveness, "keep up with the Joneses" syndrome--but none of these things can give him what he wants. His weary eyes look back on that long-gone horizon, which he can still perceive if he looks hard enough, but there's always the despair of knowing that what he has and what he truly desires can never be reconciled. Wow, I kinda rambled on here, didn't I? :) |
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| Pink Floyd – Time Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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Argh! Posted this one in the wrong song! Now I gotta figure out how to delete it. Darn us newbies anyway! Grrr.. |
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| Pink Floyd – Time Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This is my favorite Pink Floyd song, even though I find it profoundly depressing. It's a good thing I like depressing songs, because this one takes the cake. The way I see it, this song is from the point of view of someone older (maybe middle aged, maybe a little older than that) who is looking back on a life that is, by all conventional measures, a successful one, but yet the person feels unfulfilled because he has left the freedom and wonder of youth behind in order to pursue what he perceived as "success" (in the adult sense). Only when it's too late does he realize that this "success" rang false, and that he has lost the magic of his childhood days forever. "Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young In a world of magnets and miracles our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary The ringing of the division bell had begun" When you are a child, the world of adults is inexplicable, full of magic and all sorts of things you don't understand (magnets and miracles). What child doesn't want to hurry out of what he perceives as the limitations of childhood to get to be a "grown-up" and get to do all the things that kids aren't allowed to do? This is a bit of a reach, but I could interpret "the ringing of the division bell" in this context as the beginning of when the child starts moving away from childhood and into the world of adults (puberty, most likely). In other words, the "division bell" between childhood and adulthood, when the pure unfettered freedom of the child gives way to adult responsibilities. "There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps Running before time took our dreams away Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground To a life consumed by slow decay" Some children (and even some adults) manage to stay a step ahead of adulthood by retaining some of their childlike wonder, but it's a rare person who can maintain this for long in the face of everything the world has to throw at us. Eventually almost everyone is "tied to the ground," forced to take on responsibility and "follow the script"--marriage, children, mortgage, job, "maturity," and eventual infirmity and death. None of us get out of this alive, kids. This verse also reminds me of "Time," from "Dark Side of the Moon": "And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death." "The grass was greener The light was brighter With friends surrounded The night of wonder" This is the idealization of childhood--something that just about everybody who had a half-decent one does fairly often. We don't remember the bad stuff--all we remember is how wonderful it was to have all that freedom. "Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again Dragged by the force of some inner tide." I'm surprised nobody commented on this yet (at least I missed if they did), but "Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us" implies to me that those bridges are burning--and burning bridges means you can't go back. The narrator is looking with longing back to a time that he can still glimpse but can never return to, no matter how much he wants to. The inexorable course of life ("the force of some inner tide") keeps dragging him forward, closer to old age and death. "Steps taken forward" might imply his attempts to break out of the rut, but it's always easier to "sleepwalk back again"--fall back on old habits and let the tide carry him along. In some ways, it's crueler for types like the narrator--those who can glimpse what they have lost, as opposed to those who have left it firmly behind without ever looking back. "At a higher altitude with flag unfurled We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed-of world" This is where I get my interpretation that the narrator is/was "successful" in his life--that he achieved fame or wealth or success in his chosen career. He has reached the thing he dreamed of as a child, but now all he can think of is that he'd rather go back to the world of that child and cast all the so-called "success" away. "Encumbered forever by desire and ambition There's a hunger still unsatisfied Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon Though down this road we've been so many times." (Almost) fully assimilated into the adult world, the narrator has been encumbered by "adult" priorities--desire, ambition, greed, acquisitiveness, "keep up with the Joneses" syndrome--but none of these things can give him what he wants. His weary eyes look back on that long-gone horizon, which he can still perceive if he looks hard enough, but there's always the despair of knowing that what he has and what he truly desires can never be reconciled. Wow, I kinda rambled on here, didn't I? :) |
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