All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Children waiting for the day, they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Enlarge your world
Mad world
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Children waiting for the day, they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Enlarge your world
Mad world
Lyrics submitted by Emilia-san, edited by paryafarrokhi, sjihaat, JojoBearBinx
"Mad World" as written by Roland Orzabal
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Which for me means a invitation to not stay in the mindless circle in which you are and break out of it. Invitation to see that there is actually more than only living your life like that till your death. Enlarge your world means to enlarge your mind to be able to view more that only the pointless recurring events in which you are arrested.
...and that would be why I say kudos to all of you to whom this song appeals. If it touches you, you felt something - and if you felt something, you know something others don't, as do I.
It's a mad world...but we're built to weather it.
Oh and don't say god can help. Please. If you don't understand why this song is like this, you won't even get close to understanding the people that do.
A song writer said it right: "Everyone is so pissed and mad all the time. And then they call the people who want to enjoy life druggies and degenerates. What's wrong and right?"
"We don't take risks so that we can make it safely to death". The populace won't ever get this concept, society won't ever get this concept. So us who do are left in a society that's broken. We work to buy food, we buy food to live, we buy food to survive. There is no "living" in this world. Until you lose your fear of death, you won't get anywhere.
Worn out places, worn out faces"
Everyday he sees the same things, and the same people and he is realizing life has become a constant, daily chore.
"Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere"
Everyday, people try to outdo the last by getting up early and working extra hard, but they won't get any farther because life is a vicious circle, and you can't escape day and night.
"Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression"
People grow tired and sad of completing the same ritual over and over and over again, but you can't stop it, it's inevitable.
"Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow"
He realizes how terrible it is to get up and do something only to do it again the day after that, and the day after that.
"And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad"
It is a silly thought that every person on Earth does everything to get nowhere, but it's still really depressing that it is like that.
"The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had"
He finds that he likes the dreams in whick he's dying because he's finally out of the monotonus, repetitive psychical world.
"I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take"
He hates the idea of it.
"It's a very, very
Mad world
Mad world"
Duh.
"Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday"
Kids wait for their birthday because they feel special, and happy about getting to be a year older, but it's just another ring in the tree, and it means nothing because it's going to happen again and again, just like everything else.
"Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen"
Kids are just raised to be replacements of their parents and just sit with the other children and listen.
"Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me"
Obvious.
"Hello teacher, tell me, what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me"
He asks the teacher a question but she just "looks right through him" because he is just another member of the class and isn't important as an individual.
So it's all just about being a number and unimportant and repeating the same day over and over again but still not getting anywhere. Ahh this song makes me cry, I can't listen to it.
I love your analysis and i think you got it pretty much spot on except that in the line “look right through me” i believe that instead of the teacher looking through him and not seeing him as an individual, it sounds to me like he’s begging the teacher to see through his perfect student facade( hello teacher, tell me what’s my lesson ) although you interpritation makes sense
The first part (lines 1-8) are about a funeral. He is sitting at the funeral, and he sees the familiar faces of friends and relatives. The reference to filling glasses with tears is not talking about drinking glasses, but rather they are crieing and getting tears all over their eye glasses. The blank expressions show that it is a solemn event, and the guy is clearly sad by wanting to hide his sorrows. He wants to be string and hide it, but he feels very strong emotions.
The chorus, about his dreams, reveals the confusion going on in his head. He doesn't know how to feel in his time of despair.
When the song talks about children waiting for the day they're happy, I think he is talking about himself. Either he is a child, or he is comparing himself to a child waiting for his birthday. The "sit and listen" part is , in the child metaphor, about how kids are made to behave. From older person perspective, he feels like he's being told how to feel by the people around him, but really he wants to feel his own way.
I think that the lines about going to school once again bring up the child metaphor. Children literally do go to school and talk to teachers, but I think it really means that "going to school" is returning to life after the loss of a loved one. He feels awkward, and unsure of himself, and people always would offer their condolences and pity him, which actually makes him feel alienated. He doesn't want any special treatment.
"Hell teacher, tell me whats my lesson" means that he could be praying to God, or just looking for guidance in his life after he was torn apart by his sorrows. He wants God, or whoever can help him to "look right through him" and understand how he feels, because, as I said before, he feels alienated.
The sing finishes with another chorus. I find it a bit hard o interpret, but, as I said before, it reveals his confusion and mixed emotions. When the lyrics talking about running in circles, I think it could be referring to the "circle of life", but I'm really not sure.
There'er my thoughts, enjoy!
the only place i reckon you got it wrong was in the second verse, about the child. I think the first four lines of that verse really tell it all.
'Made to feel the way that every child should' really sums it up. The first part of that verse really says that every child (read: every person) should be able to feel safe and happy and wanted (happy birthday: on your birthday you are the centre of attention). 'Children waiting for the day they feel good' could be read as people waiting...
the second half of that verse is a bit harder to work out. i think you may have gotten it right, but it might mean that he longs for his childhood (the good times), when the biggest obstacles were things like your first day of school, or trying to do well in class etc
so maybe the first half of that verse is using childhood as a general metaphor for life, and the second half is referring directly to the artist's longing for childhood to return, because adult life is too difficult.
the chorus is pretty hard to decipher, but i guess it does reflect his alienation as you say; how he finds it 'hard to take' or to understand adult life, therefore causing a longing for childhood.
hope this helped :)
I don't think you're being too literal, and when I first heard this song that it kind of the idea that came to my head.
The second stanza is about his feelings for this mad world, which he does not wish to continue being a part of, if you would even consider him a part of it in the first place. Again, he sees these people just running around in circles, with nothing truly reached in the end.
The birthday and school references in the third stanza are examples as to how people are phased out and are no longer "living" and are instead just going through the motions. Every child just waits until they get to feel special for their birthday which is a very dark concept as it implies children do not very often feel as though they are special, or are highly valued, until it is their special day to be. Just as children do not feel special, the adults do not treat them as special. His teacher would look straight through him, as instead of getting to know his student, he runs through the motions as he would any regular student, rather than creating any bond between him as the teacher and the speaker as a student.
The speaker is very obviously stating that there is something wrong with how people are living and that they are not truly reaching any valuable goals. I believe this could be interpreted in many different ways and this is also why this song is so great; people can form connections to the song with very different interpretations of it.
One example that I believe fits best is that the speaker is speaking of the corporate world. Everyone is "racing" to get to the top, be the richest, and earn the most money. The speaker would perceive this as a mad world as money is completely extrinsic and does not help you achieve anything intrinsically meaningful. We could then see the teacher's lack of enthusiasm to help the speaker as a child as a very fitting topic to include in the lyrics because the teacher only wants money, and does not wish to go out of his way to help unless it will earn him more money. Then we could also acknowledge the bit about children not feeling so special until their birthdays as an effect of the greed of the adults who are too busy working to get money to make their children feel truly special, but attempt to make them feel better by buying them things instead.
I have only presented one possible interpretation that makes sense to me and throughout these comments you may find many more that are just as viable. I believe this is a very beautiful song.
This song puts me in the same mood as the song Bitter Sweet Symphony.
At a general level you can see this cyclical nature of humanity happening throughout history. People are doomed to repeat the failures of the past, even with knowledge of the past. They repeat the same mistakes and follow the same pattern, stuck in the rut of their blindness and refusal to see that the path that they are on is the same path as others taken before, paths that inevitably lead to failure.
When people go in circles, it is a very very mad world.
The verse referencing children is almost like a comparison between the first; between adulthood and childhood. 'Children waiting for the day they feel good, happy birthday...' seems to suggest is the only time in your life when you'll actually have a meaning for being alive, being a child it seems so exciting. It goes on to, again like an adult, present the robotic and mundane, repetitive routines that throughout your whole like you endure... 'sit and listen, sit and listen'.
'When people run in circles it's a very very... Mad World'. Why are we doing this? It's mad.