Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
Her world collapsed early Sunday morning
She got up from the kitchen table
Folded the newspaper and silenced the radio
Those creatures jumped the barricades
And have headed for the sea, sea
Ooh
Ooh
Those creatures jumped the barricades
And have headed for the sea
She began to breathe
To breathe at the thought of such freedom
Stood and whispered to her child, "belong"
She held the child and whispered
With calm, calm, "belong"
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
She stood and whispered to her child, "belong"
She held the child and whispered
With calm, calm, "belong"
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Those barricades can only hold for so long
Her world collapsed early Sunday morning
She took the child held tight
Opened the window
A breath, this song, how long
And knew, knew, "belong"
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
She got up from the kitchen table
Folded the newspaper and silenced the radio
Those creatures jumped the barricades
And have headed for the sea, sea
Ooh
Ooh
Those creatures jumped the barricades
And have headed for the sea
She began to breathe
To breathe at the thought of such freedom
Stood and whispered to her child, "belong"
She held the child and whispered
With calm, calm, "belong"
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
She stood and whispered to her child, "belong"
She held the child and whispered
With calm, calm, "belong"
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Those barricades can only hold for so long
Her world collapsed early Sunday morning
She took the child held tight
Opened the window
A breath, this song, how long
And knew, knew, "belong"
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
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In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
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The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
I always took this song quite literally: The barricades against the zombie hordes aren't going to hold much longer and then she's going to get eaten.
What can I say? Michael Stipe is an odd guy.
meaning? cryptic. again, REM's theme is very 'meta' - can't quite put 'it' into words. somehow though i disagree with the jumping out the window with the child comment. yogaboat, explain? we have these words: belong, freedom, calm, whisper. doesn't sound suicidal to me. more like a 'becoming one' theme. no?
I love the vocals on this song, haha. I don't think it is about suicide either, and this is from the REM lyrics annotations FAQ:
According to Stipe, the song is "not about defenestration"; that is, she is NOT about to jump out the window with her baby (apparent a common misinterpretation Stipe wanted to correct). [Ron Henry]
I thought it was about revolution.
"These barricades can only hold for so long"
I always wondered if it referred to a single event. It reminds me of when the Berlin Wall came down.
The thing I like about this song is that it doesn't have a simply positive or negative take on its characters. It brings up 2 images - the creatures gaining their freedom and the mother telling her child to "belong." It sounds like the creatures are threatening to the mother because "her world collapsed" because of them.
Taken out of context, I usually think of the command "to belong" as being negative; it's telling you to be a conformist. But, when it's in the context of a mother saying it to her child, it sounds comforting and hopeful. If I hear the word "freedom" in another context, it has positive connotations but when it's in the context of "those creatures," not even a human other, it sounds frightening.
You can't tell whether the song is on the side of belonging or of freedom though. It sounds like the mother is on the brink of a totally new world that could be horrible or wonderful for her child.
Here's my read:
The mother is one of the "creatures" and unlike the others she eluded captivity and has settled into a domestic life.
The repetitive line "those creatures jumped the barricades and have headed for the sea, sea" is from the newspaper / radio, it echoes in her head and signals to her that the illusion is over... it's time for her people to return to their home. She anticipates the freedom and the end of the lie.
Her comforts to the child and the collapse of her world are a moral conflict: she must leave the child behind and hopes that unlike her, the child can belong there.
"Creatures" is seen from the point of view of the society she lives in - they could be anything from literal monsters (a la Lovecraft?) to a foreign people or subculture who are dehumanized (think of the Jews under Nazi Germany).
barsinister, I love your idea of what the song could mean, and I'm sorry that you ever saw the music video and had your interpretation in any way altered. I like this view and, video be damned, I'm sticking with it! One thing is certain: I'll never watch Dark Angel the same way ever again.
I've heard that this song is about a mother and her child, and the mother is crazy. She tells her child to "belong" in society, because she does not.
That's just what I think. shrug
maybe I'm just reading too far into it, but for me I always think of the Berlin Wall coming down. it was a Saturday (November 9, 1989), and the woman in the song reads the news on a Sunday.
REM songs are never simple though, I'm sure it's a myriad of things that perhaps the band members don't even recall anymore, you know?
anyhow. awesome fucking song.
Belong almost sounds like it belongs in a comic book. Maybe the creatures are really just creatures, ect...
Since writing the above comment, I have found REM's music video for the song. It's clear to me that the intent is political - repression of freedom in a closed society, the victory of the downtrodden and the mother's identification with the liberated. So modifying the comment above, I believe the mother's collapse is the moral imperative to sacrifice her comfort for the struggle... I believe she intends to join the "creatures" (again, the word creature is a dehumanization of the protestors by the regime), but it's not clear that she leaves the child behind. So it could either be:
I would say this song is clearly a mother reading about the Tiannamen Square Massacre on June 4th, 1989 (the album came out in 1991), which was a Sunday. She is terrified at the thought of her own child growing up and participating in protests like these and being killed, so she is telling it to "Belong", don't make waves.