| Procol Harum – She Wandered Through The Garden Fence Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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All right first of all I've got to agree with BOTH of those comments. This is a story about love also weaved in with a story about drugs and to some extent personal confrontation. So, for the drug side of things, he's saying he took a potion that was supposed to relieve his suffering. in other words, he'd been hearing about how acid was supposed to change your life but because of his devious mind, his torment only gets worse as he is confronted with whatever it is that's causing the suffering in the first place. "She" (ie the personified LSD experience) taunts him for having a devious mind, saying he can't speak out of shame or that he's let himself get stupid. He wanted to speak up and defend his character, but realized that doing so he was just telling a lie to defend his character. In other words, he is suddenly, as the result of a psychedelic experience, confronted with all his deep dark secrets, fears, hidden shame, etc that he didn't really know was there before. He didn't have anything he could say that could take it away or make it somehow better, he found that he could only lie and pretend things were really better than they were. And, as the song goes, he believed himself. He thought he was someone else. We all like to think we're a little nicer, a little kinder, a little more reasonable than we really tend to be. You could say we ALL spend most of our time thinking we're somebody else, being the person we'd like to be instead of who we are at heart. So, he believes the lie about himself to protect his dignity, BUT at the next line, "She" sees who he really is, and promptly leaves him all alone. The chance for introspection and mental clarity has gone, he is coming back to his sober mind again, and is left on his own to face the world in his own way. Until he drops again. Now despite all that, I do think this could easily pass as a love song too. It's like that painting where you see either an old lady or a young girl depending how you interpret it. This song seems to be equally about both, and probably intentionally is phrasing falling in love in terms of drug experience, and vice versa. |
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