| Phish – Frankie Says Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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This song is about how when thinking about time and reality you can get caught up in a feeling where nothing seems real and life feels distant and meaningless. It is at these times that you must "relax", and know that the world will "suck you" back to the hustle and bustle of life with "threats and hopes beyond compare". When getting caught up in concepts such as time, people often fall into a loop where they feel that they know nothing. This is what the first verse is about -- "I knew more than I know now, for I've been turned around somehow". Before this feeling, everything seemed to make so much sense, but now he feels lost and lacks understanding. When consumed with this feeling of insignificance and complete awe of the vastness of time and space, a way to get caught up in the world again is to wait it out and try to become distracted again by what the world offers. This, I believe, is the meaning of the second stanza. He is simply meandering about, waiting for that feeling to go away and for his insignificant life to feel significant again. The third and fourth verses are about how these feelings cycle throughout ones life, even when one has already submitted to the power of the unknown. Weeks, months, or even years after getting rid of that feeling by falling back in to one's life (success, failures...hopes, threats), the feeling can come rushing back in an instant and smother you down to that overwhelming feeling of insignificance and helplessness. Again you fall back in to your life, and wish that these cycles "don't keep coming back for more". The last verse is a curt display of the helplessness that one feels when enveloped in these feelings. "I've lost my mind"...that is how it can feel when you are overwhelmed by feelings of despair and try to care about the mumbo jumbo that people are concerned with every day. Phish, while displaying this feeling for us all to reflect on, reminds us every chorus to remain optimistic. When you experience these sometimes fleeting and sometimes lingering feelings of utter insignificance, if you get caught in time loops, if you sometimes can't understand how people are so worried about menial things or if human problems seem distant and meaningless......just relax -- the world will spin beside itself and suck you in, with threats and hopes beyond compare. In other words, something will come your way and you will be sucked back in to the life that a moment ago you found so trivial. It will not be until the next cycle that you remember that feeling and wonder how you lived without thinking about it for so long. |
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