| The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Highway Chile Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Interesting Hendrix song. Technically...not easy to play...has fascinated me for yonks and I'm a professional player. Lyrically it feels that it's about the drifter...the young person..the rebel...who is put down by those around him...Jimi gives him a hero status... the explorer that left the world behind..we don't know what his background is ...it could be this or it could be that..it's the drifter as hero..long live Kerouac. It could be autobiographical yet it's more...I identified with this song when I was seventeen, so did others that I know who left home looking for a more fulfilling life. Anyway it's not the easiest Hendrix song to play...ask your local guitarist to do the whole thing...not just the bends at the beginning, |
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| Yes – Owner Of A Lonely Heart Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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The song meaning is clarified by the video. The video script/screenplay is an adaption of the Franz Kafka novel "The Trial". The script remains faithful to the novel till the very last scene, where in typical Yes fashion we have a happy ending. This is not a betrayal of the novel as Kafka postulates the alternative ending anyway and Yes have simply taken him up on it. The Kafka novel starts with an ordinary guy with an ordinary job leading an ordinary life being arrested. He is told that he is on trial and , to cut a long story short, his sentence is death. In other words, this guy "goes with the flow" and does not question the world around him. The first couple of verses have Yes admonishing this bloke and urging him to make up his own mind about things and take control of his life. Following verses do much the same thing. "Give your free will a chance etc." It's difficult for me to keep explaing the meaning of the song as it is so directly tied to the clip and the novel...I would give away the punchline(s) of the book and ruin it for those who would read it. Sufficient to say that the song is a great piece of music and the lyrics open up worlds to those who care to follow it through. See the clip, read the book and the lyrics will have another level of meaning. |
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| Tool – 10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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There is a second layer of meaning to this song...a Jungian level. In Jung's study of Western religion one of the conclusions he came to was that it was incomplete. It lacked the feminine perspective and he presents a lot of evidence for this...I wont delve into it at this point except to say that Christ's mother "Mary" (Marie, in French) was taken to heaven,' body and soul'..etc etc. Jung argues that the politicisation of religion denied the fourth element and, in fact, demonised the feminine. One of his examples of evidence of the missing element is the peculiar "four cornered" priests' hat that has three "mickey mouse "ears not four , as the design of the hat should dictate. Suffice it to say that the lines "fetch me the spirit, the son and the father...etc" could have been lifted straight from Jung's writings. These were the lines that caught my ear upon first listening. Second listening revealed the "hero" motif...again Jungian. When taken in context of lyrics in Lateralus and Tool's overt references to Carl Jung at live performances there is much to be said for a universal meaning to this song. |
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