| Jackson Browne – The Barricades of Heaven Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The first verse, he's driving on the shore, only using the gas pedal, "couldn't tell you what those brakes were for", trying to find his sound for music. It expresses the joy and carelessness of being young and free. His friend found his sound as soon as he won a guitar and they played music all the time. Music became life, life became music, "life became the paradox...", and they dreamt of playing in Hollywood "...and the stretch of road running to L.A." Pages turning symbolizes growing older or life experiences and the "pages we were years from learning" are all of the experiences they were waiting for in the years to come. In the chorus, he's warning that you'd better bring your own escape from the grip of Hollywood that can pollute and corrupt a person like it did others who aren't the same as they were when they were back home, and now the protection of home, the "barricades of Heaven" that can protect you from that corruption, can't help them recover the people they used to be. The third verse, the "shining hills" are L.A. and all the stars that live there and all the up and comers testing their will trying to make it big, making it a competition, but he "lost track of the score long ago." The bridge talks about how we still thinks about childhood and how great it was to be young. The torn and burning pages symbolize experiences he's forgotten, friends he's no longer friends with, and faded pages are the memories that he's starting to forget. |
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