| Windmill – Tokyo Moon Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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In Tokyo Moon, I think the songwriter has strung together an assortment of evocative images and details that are effective in establishing an atmosphere and suggesting certain themes. And I definitely think he’s reflecting on his experiences, so in a sense, there is a story within the song. I don’t, however, think his goal with this song is to tell that story to the audience in a straightforward, concrete way. Instead, I think his goal is to express emotions and insights connected to these experiences. In other words, he’s not telling us what happened so much as telling us how he feels about what happened. My point, here, is that we the audience don’t need to know exactly what happened for the song to work. We only need to feel a connection to the experience, a resonance. In order to do this, we probably have to build some sort of narrative in our mind. For instance, I suspect that this guy had a history of relying on drugs to cope with stress, and that he’s trying to move on from that, to face life’s challenges without that crutch. I suspect he was involved in a break up, that he grew apart from someone who was once central to his life. I suspect the break up disrupted nearly all aspects of his life, everything from his living situation to his network of friendships to his sense of self. I suspect it happened while he lived in Tokyo. But who knows? I don’t. I don’t know if there’s literally a museum involved. I kind of doubt it. It makes more sense to me that the apartment you shared with a partner feels like a museum when the relationship ends, as it captures a moment in your history. And I don’t know what to make of the experiments he mentions. Maybe relationships are like experiments to him, something we undertake simply to see what we will learn. Who knows who Rachel is. The ex? A mutual friend? Maybe there’s no break-up at all, and the song is all about drug abuse and recovery. Again, I don’t know, and again, it doesn’t matter, at least to me, because regardless, the song makes me feel profound feelings. It’s beautifully satisfying to imagine what the moon in Tokyo looks like for this haunted figure. |
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