Bigger Wave

These lyrics totally throw me for a loop. The first verse reminds me of something I learned in an English class once, that no matter what, all behavior that people around us see is an act. So I feel like the first verse is somebody taking up a persona before going into public (Going live in 5). The rest of it...I don't know. But the lyrics are beautiful; what a gift that KevMo has.

nice lyrics...i accept the first verse ax you explain...and the rest is about i think the character expect another thing from the life and live...but it is not that way and is always worried about his life...yeah?

Super Dude is right. This is an existential lesson, one used often in drama class. The fact that very few people, none possibly, sees your real self. An interesting concept. Every persona you choose to display is an act.

Best song on the album. As for the meaning, I'd say Super_Dude's comment is pretty accurate.

To me, these lyrics are explaining how much people underestimate themselves. The wave is a trend, and people like trends. Most of us think that we need to mimic others and fit into a group to be happy ("get into character"), and we put on a front that suppresses our actual selves. For the part about the "bigger wave", it might have something to do with how increasingly more people are willing to do anything to fit in, including harming others.

Another interpretation I have is this: People stress out about very small things (waves), especially when nothing of actual importance is worrying them. These people then lie and convince themselves ("get into character") that the stress is unavoidable. Then when a life catastrophe happens (a bigger wave), it is impossible to react to.

how we are shaped into our characters and are taught how to behave ... we learn and shape our personalities, but we sometimes learn something which is wrong and our expectations are somewhat different from the reality.

To me Bigger Wave opens up with a description of our ego as a mask. OSI seems to have an affinity for creating a seperation between aspects of existence such as an almost Freudian psychological break-down and, even further, seperating that entire model from the physical form we as conscious beings exist within. There seems a focus on super ego temperance in the first verse that can be pretty easily seen by the almost call-response format the lyrics take, like an internal dialogue.
"I was thinking we could walk on the water And still find reasons to swim inside" That's the only lines in the song that give context to the nature of the wave. It's a very kinesthetic representation of two very different processes that reach between external and internal. The relative vagueness paired with a sense of optimism seems to me like it want's us to pay more attention to the seperations of self. The fact that they then point out a bigger wave beyond that is where I think I find the theme of this piece. As far as I can tell it's a a comment on the overwhelming and freeing nature of overcoming the imposition of these archetypical egos from hollow expectation. A lot of songs from this album all seem to go along the theme of observing or seperating from certain egosocial paradigms.Maybe I'm looking too much in or am way off base but I just see OSI's music that way: layered and complex through it's simplicity.

Or, maybe, the "bigger wave behind this one" is just talking about waves and states of consciousness. Every epiphany, every overcome challenge, and every piece of self enlightenment gained is something that actually brings him worry because he has noticed that it doesn't lead to some kind of safety or salvation but is just confronted with another wave to sift through.