| Syd Barrett – Baby Lemonade Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[Bachi:16037] This interpretation is completely crazy, but I like it for its consistency. | |
| Simon and Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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A slightly different interpretation, which seems more consistent to me. First, some thoughts on some images employed in the song. When I first heard it, "people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening" sounded to me like telepathy. They don't need to make sound to communicate. So my initial interpretation of this was positive. But considering somewhat grim tone of the song, the interpretation could be different. I don't think that it's consistent to interpret it as people don't really understand each other. No, they obviously form a community that created the "neon god" and they "bow and pray" together. So, they seem to understand each other perfectly well, just "without speaking" and "wothout listening". It could be a body language or written words or even finger language of deaf-mute people, which is why they stay in silence. Silence in this song is a scary medium in which the words and sounds seem to sink. "Neon god" hardly refers specifically to ads or commerce or wealth. It must have a broader meaning. Something visually stunning and appealing. Ads do fit within the image. But many other things also fit. Internet, for instance, though it was not around at the time the song was written. Also TV, books, newspapers, could be any disruptive communication technology. Darkness is a friend of the lyrical hero because it is the opposite of neon light. If neon is a symbol of some disruptive technology, darkness is a symbol of conservation of familiar status of things. This gives the song a sort of neo-luddite meaning. "Ten thousand people, maybe more" - this sound like a big crowd but still not millions, i.e. it is some significant minority of early adopters of the new technology. "The words of the prophets are written on subway walls and tenement halls" - consider how internet is full of cats and memes. A disruptive technology makes the profane content the main and most acceptable. So here's the interpretation: The lyrical hero has a scary image of some new thing that he perceives as dangerous in his mind, he retreats to darkness as something familiar and comforting. The image is of some visually vivid and stunning technology that disrupts the familiar means of communication, and the lyrical hero is scared and repelled from it. He sees a crowd of people who worship the new technology and tries to reason with them. But, as you would expect from worshipers, they ignore his reasoning. And this crowd is completely submerged in this new technology to the extent that the profane content becomes their prophecy. Which is probably the main source of the lyrical hero's fear. And which was always the case with people who resist to adopt new technologies. |
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| Metallica – The Unforgiven Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[singsong42:16036] Thank you! Great explanation! | |
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