submissions
| The Kinks – Big Sky Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I think Davies is saying there is no God. When people look up, they are not seeing God...just a big sky. I think the interpretation that the big sky is God comes from Davies personification of the sky. The sky is just really that...a big sky...and nothing more. It cannot solve peoples problems because it is ambivalent...it just is. In fact, it cannot even "see people like you and me". Davies is comforted by this fact...that our human, made up problems are meaningless to a vast universe...and if we just realise this we can be free of them. In fact I would go as far as to say free from religion, fear, guilt. If one day we can accept that our problems are insignificant, they won't mean that much to us. We will be free of the anxiety and strife that the belief our lives have deep significance brings. There is virtue in this Atheistic philosophy...we just are...like the big sky just is...so lets just live and not worry about the insignificant problems that we tend to get caught up in. Just realise that human beings just are and free yourself to marvel at the wonder of it all. See the lyric to Wonder Boy..."I see you, and you see me, and ain't that wonder" |
submissions
| The Kinks – King Kong Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I think the lyric is "little man's weak AS big man's strong". This gives the song a very insightful message...the little man is as weak as the big man is strong...BY COMPARISON. In other words, the stonger the big man gets the weaker the little man becomes. Thus, the little man is also motivated to become King Kong. Davies is explaining the arms race...why small countries are desperately trying to get nuclear arms and big countries are trying to keep them from doing so. Since "everbody wants power" the race will just continue...it's human nature to strive for power, wether you are currently big or small. |
submissions
| The Kinks – Phenomenal Cat Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I think Davies is being cynical about the Buddah. The Buddah lived a long long time ago and Davies contempt for his teachings is evident when he says "in the land of idiot boys" as though his followers were immature idiots. "Cat" is not literally a cat, but a cat in the sense of a "cool cat" or hip person who had something to say that others bought into at the time, like those who followed the Buddah. He is a phenomenal cat because the Buddah became a phenomenon. "No one bothered him as he sat content in his tree..." He is just observing life like the Buddah. The Buddah was fat also and Davies attributes this not to some romanticised ideal of great prosperity due to an enlightened state, but simply because he loved to eat and "that's how he wanted to stay". This is actually a clever dig at the tenent of Buddism that adopts a complacent accepting "live and let live" attitude. By gorging himself because he wanted to, he was practicing Buddism. The lyric that points me to this interpretation most is that "he had flown to old Hong Kong and learned the meaning of life and the sea and the sky beyond". This is what Siddhartha (the actual name of the Buddah) did. As he traveled through life, he obtained enlightenment, a state of all knowing, or Nirvana. Davies is cynical of all so called leaders, like John Lennon was of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi(Sexy Sadie). So what did this "phenomenal cat" do with his newfound enlightenment? He ate himself through eternity. This is another reference to Buddism...the attainment of eternal life. Davie's message? The Buddah traveled and became enlightened so he could eat through the eternity of never ending life! Lesson here...there is no right path....Buddism, Taoism, christianity...they are all created by humans and therefore tied to human wants and needs, like food in this case. For a nice comparison, read Davies lyric to "Big Sky". Here he clearly explains that the big sky is just that.. a big sky, and there is no heaven, so he is comforted when he thinks that his problems are insignificant to a universe that is ambivalent. |
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