| Portishead – Western Eyes Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| I'm surprised the lyrics above have faithless 'greeds' and not faithless 'creeds', which makes a lot more sense, as greed can't be plural (how can one greed be differentiated from another?) nor can it be supposed to possess or lack faith while creed can. Who knows, it could be intentional, and I'm not sure the overall meaning would change either way. | |
| Portishead – Western Eyes Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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'With western eyes and serpent's breath' describes a mismatch between what the eyes say and what the mouth speaks, 'serpent's breath' seems to me to mean speaking with a forked tongue, i.e. deceptively. The song is full of contradictions, for example: we lay our conscience to rest, and then 'they' do, perhaps describing a battle where our opponents fall to the same sins we do. There is also 'the heart of love is their only light' to 'faithless and holding down charity', the innocent who can't wait to crucify, and heroes who are both hidden and candid. So 3 themes running through the song are: 1) Deception; 2) Things that possess two contradictory characteristics (hidden heroes / candid heroes, heart of love and light / faithless, holding down charity, and arguably western eyes / serpent's breath); 3) Good people turning bad (innocent turning to crucifying, dishonesty). Interestingly, if we take the line 'western eyes and serpent's breath' to be a straight example of contradiction, and that serpent's breath means evil and deception, then western eyes would signify truth and goodness, implying the theme is not a critique of the west after all. Furthermore, I believe Portishead are too subtle for making such a broad critique. Critiquing globalisation and neoliberalism is one thing, but all of western civilisation is something else altogether. The 'western' reference is still a mystery to me. |
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