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.
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
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Hayalperest
This song seemingly tackles the methods of deception those who manipulate others use to get victims to follow their demands, as well as diverting attention away from important issues. They'll also use it as a means to convince people to hate or kill others by pretending acts of terrorism were committed by the enemy when the acts themselves were done by the masters of control to promote discrimination and hate. It also reinforces the idea that these manipulative forces operate in various locations, infiltrating everyday life without detection, and propagate any and everywhere.
In general, it highlights the danger of hidden agendas, manipulation, and distraction, serving as a critique of those who exploit chaos and confusion to control and gain power, depicting a cautionary tale against falling into their traps. It encourages us to question the narratives presented to us and remain vigilant against manipulation in various parts of society.
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Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
He does a nice version but I prefer the Dusty Springfield rendition probably because it was one of my favorite songs when it was released. I just love her breathy voice singing "when you knew that it was over, were you suddenly aware, that the autumn leaves were turning, to the color of his hair".
@sillybunny I love the start bit up until the first 'Like the windmills of your mind'.
Noel Harrison's version was used in the original film
Its about someone who can't forget a relationship thats ended and he doesn't know why it ended it just did and he keeps going over and over the ending of the relationship JUST MY TAKE on it
I just prefer the persian version.Its just perfect.It is about the pointless life...
The Persian version was sung by a famous and late Iranian artist Farhad
youtube.com/watch
Round, like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel. Never ending or beginning, On an ever spinning wheel now this can be nothing else but life i 2 have always thought life is a circle
Its about someone who can't forget a relationship thats ended and he doesn't know why it ended it just did and he keeps going over and over the ending of the relationship JUST MY TAKE on it
It's about thought itself, I like to think, wait I just thinked then - I think this thought is going around in circles! That was a thought too, and then...
Anyways - thought, paranoia, inspiration, memories - that is what I think this song is about.
Persian? I know there is a French version, sung by Michel Legrand - "Les Moullins de mopn couer". I don't know which came first.
To me, this song is like an ever accelerating spiraling descent into madness, brought on by the subject going over the same thing again and again in their head, perhaps a relationship breakup, as hinted in the final verse.
The first verse to me speaks of being out of control, lost, and feeling alone, the balloon flying away, the snowball down a mountain, Earth's 'apple' silent in space.
The second verse describes to me an increasing darkness of the soul and feeling trapped. Still the loneliness of the apple silent in space.
In the third verse, the subject is starting to confuse thoughts/dreams/reality and question their own memories. The images unwind and everything is falling apart.
The subject is so obsessed that they loose track of time and begin to find it hard to distinguish between real life and reality. They have fallen, out of control, into a loop of insanity.
The mind is life and life is the mind, my friend.
How can insanity, then, be the most beautiful song ever composed? It's not a rhetorical question. Sometimes humanism and conversation can cure the obsession, but the song is more about the universe and its mirroring of the mind than it is about the diagnosability of the mind through another, more authoritarian, normative, clinical mind. Pain breeds such a loop of thought. Healing, pleasure and joy change the loop. If a life is lacking in those things, and is wallowing in sorrow, then the loop itself might, rather than insanity, be a form of self-comforting...pacifier, anyone? But you might not be able to understand because perhaps your brain was not constructed thus - who is to say the style of thinking is superior. Is reality or fantasy real, and which is the preferable? A good post raises such questions. My hat, and brain, is off to you. And windmills, whatever they are, well, sometimes they form at birth.