| America – A Horse With No Name Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I'm amazed at some of the inability of people to see or understand that this song is about someone's very personal life journey out of a painful childhood and the ease with which people will avoid the key messages that have to do with human experience and emotion. On the first part of the journey.... as in when you're a child you're aware of everything alive around you and you suck it in like a sponge. The sky was clear with no clouds = no sadness. After two days...my skin began to turn red....he began to get burned...the abuse and neglect starts and the story it told of a river that flowed and made him sad to think it was dead...parents stopped loving. The desert is a place with very little life...representing his isolation, but one can figure out who they when they are alone and away from the abusers. There' ain't no one for to give you no pain. The horse with no name is the protective barrier or adopted identity in which a person will disappear into when no one is feeding or nurturing the real person and a person loses their identity. But in the desert you can remember name cuz there ain't no one for to give you no pain. After nine days he let the horse run free...after some soul searching and therapy he let the protective barrier down and didn't need it anymore...he finds himself and self love, and found the ocean ...where life exists though it can be a cover because under the cities lies a heart made of ground, but the humans will give no love. He discovers that his parents didn't have the capacity to love him for the person he was meant and would eventually be. He survives to tell the story. We all have our stories. |
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| Joan Baez – Diamonds and Rust Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| People people, it's just not that complicated! The title simply is stating from Joan's point of view the inequity of the relationship. Joan clearly is saying that she was there for him emotionally during a period in his life when he was "temporarily lost at sea" meaning a vulnerable scary place, maybe even going through an identity crisis, which isn't unusual with such successful artists and with as much fame as Dylan. It's obvious she cared for him during this time as a mother would for a wounded child. But it wasn't an adult to adult relationship emotionally. He just wasn't capable of returning the favor and she got nada from him for emotional support when it came to her life and hard times. She brought diamonds to the relationship and all she got from him was rust. It's supurb symbolism. And given that he thought her poetry was lousy I think she more than makes up for it with these lyrics. I put these lyrics in my top ten because of the raw sadness and pain that they are able to drudge up but also because it's that raw truth that comes through and her strength to say no to being in that position again. I've already paid. | |
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