Summertime Rolls

I listened to Jane’s Addiction in college, where in 1989 I heard this song for the first time and it blew my mind. I put this album in my top 5 all time. This song is the most intense on that record, so sublime and amazing — it comes at you in escalating waves of melody and images and power…just unreal. As to the “song meaning” and the purpose of this website — to interpret the meaning: This is way out there but this is one interpretation some others have agreed with me on. I think the song does quick cuts...

I listened to Jane’s Addiction in college, where in 1989 I heard this song for the first time and it blew my mind. I put this album in my top 5 all time. This song is the most intense on that record, so sublime and amazing — it comes at you in escalating waves of melody and images and power…just unreal. As to the “song meaning” and the purpose of this website — to interpret the meaning: This is way out there but this is one interpretation some others have agreed with me on. I think the song does quick cuts or flashbacks between two parallels. One is clearly a young man in love w/ his girlfriend, who’s nose is “painted pepper sunlight” (best-ever way to say freckles). The other one is the young man having been drafted to serve in a War. Bear with me on this…and try to keep an open mind. If you cut out the lyrics that obviously relate to his girlfriend, there are a few mysteries raised w/ lyrics that remain. For example, the opening paragraph, we all assume “fell into a sea of grass and disappeared among the shady blades” is another reference to playing, summer, etc, but it may be about a guy sent to Vietnam — he “fell into it” he did not choose it. “Sea of Grass” with shady blades so high that you can disappear among them? Easily could be said to be referring to the thick jungle in Vietnam. “The Children all ran over me screaming tag — you are the one!” Not exactly about a one-on-one loving experience w/ his girl. This could be said to be the Vietnamese children who did not know what to make of the soldiers, playing with them, maybe literally “tag” but maybe figuratively — since neither the Vietnamese children nor the American soldiers wanted to be in that pickle, pushing blame to each other regarding who started it. Then the lyrics change to the soldier hearkening back to his girl and their love, tripping, sandals, etc, mother’s pearl. Then, it switches back to Vietnam with “Yellow buttercup” (Asian children — try not to think racist in thinking of “yellow” as an Asian reference) seeing an American "helicopter", it shooting at them, suddenly they are bleeding, red blood mixes with yellow, forming Orange (orange buttercat) and the “yellow butterCUP” is now an orange “butterCAT” (cats have claws and teeth to fight). The war is making the "yellow" Asian children orange and butter cups into angry cats, now the orange buttercats are “chasing after” the flying entity that caused their pain for no reason —what is first called the helicopter is now called simply “the crazy bee mad about somebody” — which the children don’t understand. “Oh no” is how that ends. You may think this is out there, but how can you fit these “non-girlfriend” passages into the song when they have such imagery? And ending w/ "oh no". After the pain and reality of what the war is doing, the lyrics settle in permanently on the comforting images of the soldier’s love with his beautiful girlfriend. It even possibly references a return not only back to the relationship w/ her, but how they are walking naked — which could be a reference to the Adam & Eve story in the garden before they knew they were naked. The song then in effect ends up drawing the distinction between innocence/love/euphoria/eternal-life and knowledge/pain/conflict/awareness/mortality. Sorry, I know that is way out there and if Perry Farrell saw this he would laugh me out of the room. Maybe it’s just a song about a guy in love w/ his girl in the summertime. I am not a Vietnam vet or religious guy, just like to over analyze things, feel free to call me crazy.