Reap The Wild Wind

To quote Midge Ure: "\'Reap the Wild Wind\' is all about the melody and the rhythm of the song. We used the words and the voice, as a rhythmic sound, almost like an instrument itself. But actually, most of my old songs is a canvas of words. One line does not necessarily connect to the next. Take "Reap the Wild Wind" - it\'s really not about anything at all!" \n\nAnother possible interpretation is it could be about the economic scene of the early 1980\'s. Much of the world was in a recession and finding a stable foothold was near impossible. Then again, it can also be interpreted as being about the music industry and how unstable it is. You\'re hot one day, the next you\'re replaced by another face.

I haven't spent any time trying to figure this song out I do love the overall feeling which it evokes!

I think the lyrics are trying to suggest that it's hard to be left without the thrill of the past(youth). But it's even harder just listening about it, never lived it.

Our victorious allies, the Soviet Communist regime sent over 50,000 innocent Estonian families to die in their Gulags and Concentration Camps. They then GAVE THEIR HOMES AND LANDS to tens of thousands of Russians for free. "A footstep haunts an empty floor, a faded coat that I once wore" (now on some conquering Commie!) It also fits what happened to 500,000 innocent European refugees and civilians in Dresden, Germany, when they machine gunned burned survivors, including mothers holding melting babies. ("Desolation where I once lived......") I envision a young couple, amidst all these ruins in this song, demonstrating that their Love is more powerful than all of the evil visited upon them. "You take my hand and give me your friendship....."

Long live Joseph Stalin, long live USSR, long live communism. This is another great anti-capitalism song against the diabolical capitalist system, which must be destroyed as soon as possible !!

I'm not really understanding all the communist references, but as I see it, this is about how someone is trying to seduce another person that is flighty in nature.

This. I loved this song as a young child but could not remember the words, name or band. Until yesterday. After 40 years, accidentally whilst listening to music on my aftershokz open run pro. Whilst running across the open fields in England. Just the sound of the wild wind.

Watching the video the meaning is fairly clear I would have thought.

It is about the heroic fighter pilots of the RAF, RN (Fleet Air Arm) and our friends and allies from the common wealth and Eastern Europe (and of course the American Eagle squadrons) who together fought and defied the evil Nazi Germany in one last ditch attempt to save humanity from their evil.

Alone and cut off on this island they fought and defied, bringing the supposedly invincible wermacht to its knees.

I think the song is sung from the perspective of the ghost of one of these pilots. He has gone back to his old base, which is now a deserted and abandoned field. Maybe just a decaying old hut where they once lived and slept between missions. Many such places in the U.K. today. Not much left now, maybe a few bits of paving from the runways.

And of course the wind. The wild wind, blowing across the deserted fields. Desolation. But beauty. Maybe just the sound of some birds. Or insects in the wild flowers that now grow on the grass dispersal areas where they slept under the same late summer sun all those years ago. Sleeping between missions, waiting again for the call to go up and defend against tyranny. And maybe this pilot never came back from this last mission. He left his jacket in the rush to get airborne. Now faded and worn.

But if you go there and stand and just listen. Listen in the wind. Close your eyes. You will see these pilots. You will hear them. They have not gone. They are still here. Defending This Sceptred Isle for all eternity.