Polar Bear

I love/hate this song, I have a strage relationship with it... It reminds me of this girl I used to date who was always talking 'bout being free and never letting yourself get attached to anything, and how our relationship never really worked 'cause I'm somewhat the opposite, I'm very down-to-earth and I wanted to marry her (I was 21 and she was 22, and I loved her so much...) and be with her all the time and I found this song shortly after it was over and immediatly thought of her. I imagined myself as the polar bear of the title, this very heavy animal, bound to the ground, looking up to a seagull (another song in the 'Nowhere' album is called that, as you must know) flying freely in the sky and not being able to reach to her because he can't fly like she does no matter how hard he tries... This song means a lot to me, it breakes my heart every time and maybe it has nothing to do with anything really, but that's how I see it. And that's how music works, right?

Of lot of these lyrics are adapted from the excellent J.D. Salinger novella "Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters". I'm not sure if the line "Raise the roof higher" was intended as a reference or not, but there is a line in that story that refers to a little girl who says she can fly around her apartment, that goes: "she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her hands from the lightbulbs". There's the first verse and the lines about fingers learning that lightbulbs burn.

Thank you alot for clearing that up ! I really wondered what the song would mean. Anyway, I wonder why it's called "Polar Bear".

Don't guess what's about but the last block is simply the best of Ride.

Polar Bear in my feeling is more of a man who has to escape or at least hide his true feeling. Or it might because he had no choice to do anything currently to continue his relationship. The lyrics here is more about the girl, who is trying to love him back. At least, he is sure that the girl loves him. And the lyrics" please raise the roof higher" but nobody heard is trying to explain how hard the situation/reality can be to get what she wants which is to get his love back, to find him. The lyrics "Why should it feel like a crime? If I want to be with you all the time" is a confession from lyricist that he loves the girl a lot, but there is a hidden force that is holding back him from reaching to her. And there is a barrier on the other side, that girl, who is also trying to love him back, but find it hard to make it happen. The lyrics"Why is it measured in hours?", in my feeling, is trying to imply that if reality makes it almost impossible for them to be with each other, then he chooses to love her through the sign of universe, in a way that trenscends time and space, there they can be with each other as long as they want. As lyricist mentioned in the first song Seagull, " we all knoe there's no limit to thought" and here this time, thsi line "You should make your own time, you're welcome in mine", makes sense a lot.

Polar Bear in my feeling is more of a man who has to escape or at least hide his true feeling. Or it might because he had no choice to do anything currently to continue his relationship. The lyrics here is more about the girl, who is trying to love him back. At least, he is sure that the girl loves him. And the lyrics" please raise the roof higher" but nobody heard is trying to explain how hard the situation/reality can be to get what she wants which is to get his love back, to find him. The lyrics "Why should it feel like a crime? If I want to be with you all the time" is a confession from lyricist that he loves the girl a lot, but there is a hidden force that is holding back him from reaching to her. And there is a barrier on the other side, that girl, who is also trying to love him back, but find it hard to make it happen. The lyrics"Why is it measured in hours?", in my feeling, is trying to imply that if reality makes it almost impossible for them to be with each other, then he chooses to love her through the sign of universe, in a way that trenscends time and space, there they can be with each other as long as they want. As lyricist mentioned in the first song Seagull, " we all knoe there's no limit to thought" and here this time, thsi line "You should make your own time, you're welcome in mine", makes sense a lot.