If There Is Something

I think the song starts out in the first stanza as a young guy on the dating scene. A little bit of a game player, but looking and a little lost...has a hard time being a good guy (keeping on the straight course). He's a young guy...so many pretty girls, so little time. He has a girlfriend from childhood, but ahh, the temptation! We flip right into the second stanza quickly. The music changes as radically as the do the lyrics. So, he is still young. He fell in love - and the desperation shows....the passion, the intensity, the dreams, the idyllic bliss. He would do anything for her....the rose garden and growing potatoes symbolize having kids and growing old with her. There is a loooong musical interlude to the third stanza. This symbolizes all the years that go by...still passionate but it does start to mellow somewhat after the climax. Final stanza, he is remembering their youth as an old man. The ponytail is awesome. The hills being higher and trees being taller...everything is larger than life in our memories, especially of our childhood....and the grass is always greener. The movie "Flashbacks of a Fool" can change the meaning....in that first stanza, he has a childhood love, but plays the field....and it is an unsatisfying gameand in his mind makes the pelas of desperation for his love before it is too late, but in reality, he doesn't. Time goes by, and last stanza, it's the mumblings of an old man who let his life go by, not marrying his childhood love, but remembering her nonetheless...that the grass was NOT greener in his choice.... It was a great movie, and putting hte song to the movie, this interpretation seems to fit.... However, I loved the song before the movie, and like it the more romantic and happy meaning :-).

This might be the greatest song I've ever heard. The recording is beautiful, the music is amazing. Who isnt touched by that oboe solo? And Bryan Ferry's lyrics are concise and he sings with such emotion. "I would do anything for you!" This is just a great declaration of love and passion and feeling.

This song is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. I first heard this song when I was about 12 years old, which I feel was the perfect age to hear it for the first time. Just like the song which begins with an up beat (young, youthful, fast), it turns into something deeper (transitioning from a child to an adult), such as falling in love, then it turns again becoming even deeper, for the last time (old age) reminiscing about youth and how when you were a child things were fresh, and colorful and big (being a child you are small and everything is taller and larger and new) and all the things that you appreciate now, you couldn't appreciate then, because you were still a child and didn't understand them, but the lyrics "lift up your feet and put them on the ground, you used to walk upon, when you were young" means that this person is older and frail and can't walk like they could when they were young and youthful. I believe thhe end of the song is the acceptance of death and the reminiscence of the life they lived. I've heard thousands of songs and no song I have ever heard is this deep and powerful. Every human being that has ever lived a full life can relate with each and every single lyric. Amazing.

hey! I can't believe there are so little comments on this song. It's wonderful! I think it's a soprano saxaphone, not an oboe. Well, that's just what I reckon...It sounds like a Saxaphone to me. But yeh, this song is wonderful

It's amazing how musically different the songs from Roxy Music can be. I started listening to them just recently. The whole Viva! live album rocks! Ferry sounds like a maniac but in a strange way it fits in.

I love this song. It's the most romantic song ever. I mean he'd even grow potatoes by the score... is that meaning he's wanting kids (therefore income is reduced, therefore potatoes become a staple?) And the ponytail adds such a vivid picture of youth and the unattainable return to a time of simplicity and shows the profundity of mundane events we take for granted. I effing love this song. Roxy Music ROCKS!

I love this song .Like the first Roxy Music album (in which it is included )it is a raw unpolished gem .I saw Roxy perform this in the '70's ,and the instrumental interlude in the middle haunted me for weeks afterward . I still find it haunting . I like to listen to it in bed , with the lights off , and just get lost in that haunting , soaring middle section . I always assumed it was mostly Andy Mackay on his oboe , but I'm not sure . In the concert it was (I think )Eddie Jobson on an electric violin . I wish more people were aware that Ferry created gems like this .

My humble opinion: My favorite ever (with wild is the wind Bowie version). The way Brian blends in with the sax is briliant and spine chilling. Lyrics are great. flashbacks movie used it well and is the only perk to th movie. Perfect song with stry around it.... I guess Brian and Eno (they should have stuck together ;)) made the ultimate nostalgia song. Where Brown eyed girl of Van the Man brings a smile on your face, this one cuts down to the core.

I think the lyric is actually: If there are many MeaningS the same BeING specific'S just a game The song starts to make more sense then, and the words match what I can hear on the album. I also think it is "Looking round corners" and "Trying to find piece of mind" Was there ever an official lyric sheet for this song? I never saw one if there was.

I fell so very in-love with this song the first time I heard it . I worked all month at a school carrying these heavy boxes of exam papers from room to room in this small town , the pay was shitty but I was trying to save up for a little holiday. After hearing this song I bought my first guitar with those savings. three months later I had my first gig ( very bad ) and today I play in an amazing blues band. It all started with " Shake your hair girl with your ponytail Takes me right back (when you were young) ".