Exposure

General CommentThis song is about Donald Fagen

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Song MeaningThis song belongs to the "Mozo" set, together with On the Air, Down the Dolce Vita, That Voice Again, Red Rain, and Here Comes the Flood. Since the story itself is incomplete, there is a lot of room for creative guesswork. Which is what I am going to do ;-)

Mozo, it appears, is a lonely, "enigmatic traveller" (homeless? socially awkward?), who resides in a town near the sea, and who desperately wants to be seen and heard and recognized by other people. For this last purpose, he has set up a short-wave radio station in a shed made out of driftwood, near the shoreline. I would not be surprised if what Peter Gabriel envisioned was to play around with the sound of the sea and the sound of static noise.

But as for this song: Mozo's great wish is for exposure. But, I think that this song was also meant to be re-used later in the story, when things get more than a little weird. Somehow (due to Mozo's actions? But, see "Here comes the Flood") people in the village rapidly become telepathic, and turn out to be unable to shield their minds and thoughts from or against the minds and thoughts of other people, and "exposure" gets a much darker meaning: everybody is exposed, secrets, shame, desires, dark thoughts and all.

None of this explains the line "Space is what I need it's what I feed on" though.

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