Nietzsche's Eyes Lyrics
I have to hear you say to me
Self obsessed artist
Center of your universe
Well I believed your every word
And I believed you were my god
Nietzsche's kind
Failed in flight to us
And all my love
And now I see it in myself
I take on the water
Until the dam threatens to break
I became a little dull
My voice became too small
I'm getting down this
Getting down this You were not my superman
I didn't know Just held the phone
All my love I'm shakin' I'm shakin'
I'm getting down this fantasy
I'm shakin' I'm shakin'
I'm getting down this, getting down this
You were not my superman
I tried to philosphize
Only too late did
I see I wore nietzsche's eyes
Now that I step back to see
I haven't been me
I'm getting down this fantasy
and I'm shakin'
I'm shakin'
I'm getting down this
getting down this
Someone help me out here: I love the lines "Now that I step back to see, I haven't been me" and "I take on the water till the dam threatens to break" Is it about a girl in a relationship where she has given her all to a guy who isn't giving back in return...and she keeps on taking so much shit from him and he consumes her and she loses herself in the madness?
She's talking about a controlling and manipulative relationship. I would think the line about taking on water means holding in her emotions and feelings and opinions, as well as shouldering the brunt of the responsibility of the relationship. She's realizing that she hasnt been herself in the relationship, and that she's been seeing him and thier relationship as something that it's not. hence, letting go of the fantasy. Understanding that what they had was empty, and destructive.
You guys are probably on the right track if not correct. Anyway, what would all of this have to do with Friedrich Nietzsche (the German philosopher)?
It would seem that she is speaking of a previous love and the relationship between herself and that lover. He (or maybe even she) was her god who felt she was too self-obsessed with her art and not totally, fully, and completely committed to the relationship. She seems to have worshipped this person in love.
Nietzsche was a German philosopher and maybe she is utilizing Nietzsche here to symbolize her tendency to be too rational, technical or even intellectual in her relationship.
She seems to have gone through a stage of self-introspection and noticed this tendency to be too "Nietzschean". Thus, she noticed that this tendency -- of seeing her relationship through Nietzsche's eyes and being his kind -- brought the relationship down and failed in their relationship as a whole and where it was destined to go. She noticed this and realizes she wasn't being herself, but merely appealing to her intellectual tendencies.
By saying, "you were not my superman" she is trying to get the idea across that this lover wasn't truly what she'd though they were before. Nietzsche believed in the "Overman", or "Superman" -- a being whom has overcome or surpassed modern man and epitomizes and symbolizes all that is great. This is Nietzsche's so-to-say god in that he seems to sublimate himself to inevitable coming of this being. So, this can incorporated here to symbolize that her lover wasn’t truly her god (which she states at the beginning of the song) in that they weren’t truly her superman – if you remember that she is seeing everything through Nietzsche’s eyes.
Logically make sense?
i know that this post is a few moons late, but i just discovered the song and was intrigued. in fact i started this account just so i could post on it.
Anyway, LennonGenius' is really onto something, especially if you take into consideration that Nietzsche prized art and creativity over logic and reason. As a musician, i tend to lean that way myself. Also, the nature of Overman would transcend common morality, which (in the song) she may have hurt some people (grandmother, mother) along the way, while emulating the behaviour of the Overman, OR she inherited the tendency FROM her family, and hurt the object of the relationship that she is bemoaning - IF it is a relationship she is singing of. She MAY feel betrayed by what she learned from the good philosopher... Though in life he was a kind man, his philosophy tended to be fairly hostile, and adherents to this philosophy, myself included, have to be careful not to alienate people by being condescending. His ideas on morality, in particular, divide people's morality between that of a "master" and that of a "slave". The slave morality is also referred to as "herd-animal morality", which at the same time treats most people as cattle and calls to mind the Christian idea of "the flock", with Jesus as its shepherd. The ultimate concept that he was working toward was each person's ability and right to reinvent themself in order to achieve higher culture, and eventually peace, but the nature of (arguably) most people is to dominate, and judge.
So when she was studying nietche, perhaps she became too zealous, or pompous, elevating herself to Overman and looking down at the people around her. Soon after, she realized the damage she caused to her relationships with others, she repented and forsake her idolization of Nietzsche (you were not my superman) and began to view him - and perhaps herself as a "self obsessed artist". Her venture into philosophy "failed in flight", so she is abandoning ship, or "getting down (off of) this fantasy"
anybody else?
Agreed. she is stepping back, looking through someone else's eyes and sees he is not her 'superman'. She is through.
Nietzsche is credited with the aphorism "god is dead" (Gott ist tot) and this clearly bears a connection to the first verse. It may be about the bubble bursting on her unquestioning but deluded admiration for one who decried her egoism. The reference to mother and grandmother may relate to external sources of disapproval or imposed morality (rejected in his writings). The term "through Nietzsche's eyes" conjures vague connection to the perspectivism he championed, although the song's whole metaphorical and contextual fabric seems contradictory and confused. He would have advised outright rejection of any criticism from the start. While a romantic failure in his own life, Nietzsche would have advised her from the start to be herself and not elevate the views of others above her own sense of worth. This rather scattered ditty might name Nietzsche in a pretentious flourish rather than in any considered fashion, and I suspect any attempt to make rational sense of it will only drive you mad. Which, as it turns ,would justify the Nietzsche reference after all...go figure.