| The New Pornographers – Adventures in Solitude Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Hmm... Well I've been reading a fair amoung New Pornographer interpretations and one common theme I've seen from comments is "If you've lived it, you get it." I've never been divorced or had an affair, but I do have depression; as a result, in some sense I 'get' this one. First consider that the narrator is not the subject. The narrator is extending empathy to the subject, attempting to assist him/her through the 'guilt' phase of re-entering relationships (vanished marvels) after a period of self-inflicted alienation. The narrator's familiarity with the metaphors of depression survival - of silent, self-inflicted psycho-spiritual (and more rarely physical) violence - indicates a personal experience similar to the subject's; further the narrator's statements 'to pay off a debt..." and "we brought the same blood back..." references the common experience of depression-survivors, who often feel they owe a debt to someone who helped them to come back to society that cannot be repaid directly that obligates them to repay that debt to someone else who suffers what they have suffered and who, only another survivor knows, will spend the rest of their lives 'circling the edge of the neverending.' |
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| Simon and Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I like the comments I've seen, but I think you're missing an element. What are we to think of the narrator? "Fools," said I, "you do not know/ The silence like a Cancer Grows/ Hear my words..." The narrator, in his compassion (or contempt), seems to suffer some hubris. Meanwhile, the Neon Sign that is the subject of worship does share profound wisdom, of a sort. "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls/ and tenement halls/ and whispered in the sound of silence" may be understood to extend the capacity for truth-speaking to those who are usually denied a voice - the poor, the homeless, and the marginalized. This contrasts with the narrator, "I" (Paul Simon), who is the kind of person who is used to having the privilege of speaking and having people hear (if not listen). Of course, a second possible interpretation of the "Words of the Prophets" in which the prophets are not the writers-on-the-walls, but the historical/legendary prophets who prophecied an end of days - in which case the sign is suggesting that from evidence of common experience, the "words of the (ancient) prophets are now being enacted. |
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