| Talking Heads – Dream Operator Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Why can't I edit my comment? | |
| Talking Heads – Dream Operator Lyrics | 5 years ago |
|
I've loved this song for years. Been meaning to explain what it means to me for a long time. I think the song illustrates something Alan Watts, the British philosopher-mystic said in his myriad talks and wonderful books. He opined that at the moment of death, the ego illusion of being a separate being in a bag of skin and bones, falls away, and we realize that Who we really are is one with God. The songwriter (David Byrne) is taking the viewpoint of God throughout the song. I don't know what every phrase means, e.g., "shake it up, dream, hidi-ho dream," etc., but in essence it is God talking to a dying person (which is every one of us), offering Her Hand and the grace of faith to "let go of your life" in the knowledge that Understanding will follow in the afterlife. Our life itself, as ego-identified beings, has often been likened to a dream, throughout literature, e.g., Wordsworth, Shakespeare, et al. The song posits that death is an awakening from this dream |
|
| Talking Heads – Dream Operator [DVD] Lyrics | 5 years ago |
|
I've loved this song for years. Been meaning to explain what it means to me for a long time. I think the song illustrates something Alan Watts, the British philosopher-mystic said in his myriad talks and wonderful books. He opined that at the moment of death, the ego illusion of being a separate being in a bag of skin and bones, falls away, and we realize that Who we really are is one with God. The songwriter (David Byrne) is taking the viewpoint of God throughout the song. I don't know what every phrase means, e.g., "shake it up, dream, hidi-ho dream," etc., but in essence it is God talking to a dying person (which is every one of us), offering Her Hand and the grace of faith to "let go of your life" in the knowledge that Understanding will follow in the afterlife. Our life itself, as ego-identified beings, has often been likened to a dream, throughout literature, e.g., Wordsworth, Shakespeare, et al. The song posits that death is an awakening from this dream. |
|
| Morrissey – Life Is A Pigsty Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
I think this song represents Morrisey's Job-like lamentations about the pain and distress of life. One gets one's hopes up, things seem to get better for a time, and then the crash comes and one finds new "broken fortunes." Morrisey also reflects that even after all his fame and fortune, "I'm the same underneath"--a reference, no doubt, to unhealed childhood traumas that no amount of wealth and fame can heal. And yet for all his agony and angst, Moz loves life and the Source of life, to which this song is addressed: ("Every second of my life I only live for you.") Yet like Job, who suffered so much at the hands of God, for no apparent reason, Morrisey questions why he must endure all the pain: "Can you please stop time?/Can you stop the pain?" Like Job, he WILL speak his mind to God, consequences be damned: "And you can shoot me, and you can throw me off a train/I still maintain/Life is a pigsty." By the song's end he has come full circle, from the opening's distress and broken fortunes; he has not given up on life or on God; though he is angry and hurt, he cannot give up, and even in "the final hour of my life/ I am falling in love again." |
|
| 4 Non Blondes – What's Up? Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I see it as about ultimate issues of purpose and meaning. "Hope for a destination" has to do with answering the question, "What is the purpose of life?" -- and then, "Why am _I_ here?" The singer has not found the answer. She prays for revolution because, as any fool can see, this world needs a revolution against the prevailing predatory, pitiless, ultimately suicidal social system. | |
| Joan Osborne – One Of Us Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| The song points to the fact that God is in fact incarnated as every human being on earth. Osborne asks us if it is easier to believe in a God Who is immanent - the indwelling immortal spirit in the heart of all sentient beings, testified to by all the saints and sages of every religion and esoteric teaching - than the "Sunday School" God who is a remote and distant, all-seeing Judge. To cite only one reference, Matthew 25 talks about how "what you have done for the least of these" (the hungry, the homeless, the sick, et al) "you have done for me." In other words, what Jesus was saying is that He IS these people. And Osborne is saying the same thing: God is "just a stranger on the bus, tryna make his way home." God is "just a slob like one of us." The song challenges the belief in a transcendent God, i.e., one who created the world but does not dwell in it. Many religious people have yet to overcome this dualism. | |
| Gilbert O'Sullivan – Alone Again (naturally) Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
This is one of those all time great songs that I can just listen to again and again and never tire of it. I've probably heard it hundreds of times over the years. I suppose it's meaning if fairly transparent: a man is stood up for an important date, or, possibly, his beloved has backed out on their wedding plans, and he is suicidally depressed. He doubts God's mercy or even existence, not understanding why he is now alone. He feels abandoned by God, not recognizing that he has already (probably) abandoned God by making an idol of his fiance. My favorite verse: It seems to me that there are more hearts Broken in the world that can't be mended Left unattended What do we do? What do we do? Indeed. What DO we do? How about recognize we're all in this together, have compassion for ourselves and be kind and loving to everyone? How about loving All and Everyone from the 4th Chakra of universal compassion, rather than staying in the lower chakras where "love" is attachment and full of egoic agendas that inevitably lead to suffering? And then he talks about how his mother mourned his father's passing, the only man she ever loved. I see that this song is about trying to justify God's ways, trying to grok the inexplicability of our su ffering. Of course there is no bumper sticker answer. But the saints and sages of every religion have provided the answer, for those who want to know. |
|
| Elton John – Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think Moonangel is right. This song is about a relationship that never became consummated. The lyricist wants to at least remain friends but his beloved has become threatened somehow and is cutting him off entirely. The line that always puzzles me is, "Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see." I haven't heard anyone interpret that line. I think it refers to the dissonance between his persona and his deeper, more authentic self. He has trouble expressing his authentic feelings (I can't find, oh the right romantic line), and this troubled self is his persona (the "someone else" I see). Perhaps he wonders if he'd been more authentic, more transparent, maybe she wouldn't have let the sun go down on him. | |
| Al Stewart – Time Passages Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| It's about how the past doesn't really ever go anywhere, but remains part of the present. And then sometimes we realize "there's something back there that you left behind." What's been left behind is our Original Self, Who we were before our mother and father were born. You realize you are not BECOMING anything -- not any better, wiser, etc. because the "you" you thought you were is an illusion (the ego). Your True Self (that you left behind) is always already Are Whole and Complete. That's why he says, "Don't know why you should feel that there's something to learn" -- because that's not what life's about, it's about recovering connection with Soul, that part of us that already is Whole, Complete, and Happy. So this is really a very mystical song about returning to the innocence of childhood and coming Home (to God, or our True Nature as they say in Zen). | |
| Al Stewart – Year Of The Cat Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
She is clearly more to him than just a prostitute, or he wouldn't have stayed with her for more than a night. But I agree there is some eroticism there. |
|
| Al Stewart – Year Of The Cat Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| No, I don't get the picture. You've provided nothing to support the claim that the song is a metaphor for the Vietnam war. | |
| Bob Dylan – Dignity Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Definitely one of Dylan's all time best tracks. I never tire of it. I find it moving on a very basic level, the search for honor and respect in a society replete with tawdry commercialism, exploitation, and pervasive hucksterism and dishonesty. The search has religious overtones, e.g., the "valley of dry bone dreams" is a biblical reference. "I'm on a rollin' river, in a jerkin' boat" recalls the Rimbaud poem, The Drunken Boat. Many of the lines are nonetheless puzzling, e.g., "Footsteps running across the silver sand, steps goin' down into tattoo land" -- ? I haven't a clue what that means. Yet this is a Seeker's song, I am sure of that. It is about the lifelong search for Dignity, which ultimately cannot be found outside of our own hearts. | |
| Eagles – Pretty Maids All In A Row Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
The brevity of life, the impermanence of everything: time itself, heroes, loves, childhood. And how slow we are to learn what is truly important. The Wedding allusion is symbolic of the true goal of life: it represents the union of Spirit and Nature, Soul and Body, Life and Death. The reconciliation of finitude with the Infinite. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.