| Grateful Dead – Franklin's Tower Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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To me, as for so many Dead tunes, this one is about inspiration and music. What your spirit had, has, could have... Little bits of spiritual wisdom: roll away the dew = shake it off, if you plant ice your gonna harvest wind = do things that are meaningful, and wildflowers can't grow in sand and wind... but they can grow if planted and nurtured. What is Franklin's Tower? Inspiration? Freedom? I always like to think so. |
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| Grateful Dead – Blow Away Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Brent killed himself after his divorce was final and he lost custody of his child. I agree, not much to interpret here... just a broken, bitter blues... and the knowledge (or belief) that a little faith and patience (and music) would change things for the better. | |
| Jethro Tull – Locomotive Breath Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Not gonna go overboard here... looking at the time 1971. Vietnam War in full bloom... Vets coming back addicted to heroin, their minds in ruin. Full of PTSD and fear and dissolution. Those are the images I see... "Charlie" would be the Viet Cong. They were called "Charlie" by the soldiers in battle. "crawling on his hands and knees" in fear of losing his "life" (family and children) brings back that fear in the battlefield... He blames God for his circumstance... or maybe just doesn't believe in God anymore. That is common among drug addicts. And the train is a multiple metaphor: life, circumstances, the insanity of his mind, and the drug: "Heroin" the "H-train" as they used to say in the early seventies. Of course the religious metaphors ring true as well - and that's what makes good psychedelic art (and Jethro Tull is certainly high order psychedelia) - words have two meanings, people interpret it close to their lives. To me this is a song about a Vietnam Vet who comes home to find his mind gone, his life in ruins, and no way to stop using the very thing that "stole the handle" for him... the drugs... and he is headlong to his death for this reason alone... the rest are circumstances, consequences, and the stark grasping for spirituality that he knows would save him if he could only slow down... |
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