Spider and I

There is something profound about this song that is as of now completely eluding me. I can't decide if it's a terrible sadness, or...

This was my favorite song for a long time. It has no given meaning, yet it means so much. It's purely beautiful.

I wouldn't have thought of terrible sadness, but I think that describes it perfectly. This song is how I'd feel if I was frozen inside a block of ice or if I turned into a rock, like in Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. People sometimes sleep in the mornings when they're depressed because they don't want to get up. The part about the ship is escapism.

The interpretation of a lyric is only the smallest portion of the meaning in a song... A song's meaning is derived from its feel, its vibe... This song lingers around you and from time to time creeps through you; Calms your ego. Brian eno never meant anything by lyrics... he just created candy for your essence, lush soundscapes. And I really like it, and i really this song. It carries you around on its sad back.

The "spider and I" conflates one person's ultimate value or position as equitable with the other... in a sense deflating the "more valuable" ego of man down to to the level of the spider since both will meet the inevitable end of life.

"Sit watching the sky" is about learning during life ("childhood" or as the initial step in a meta-Sequence). "On our world without sound" is the interior life... sound can only be made outside of the ear and the mind that interprets it. "We knit a web / to catch one tiny fly" is presenting the process we embark upon after the "learning" we did before this sequence of action/reaction... our life in a nutshell ("work a job, make a little money"). That "for our world without sound" is repeated has it's meaning in more of the "meta-Sequence" as it yes, could be that the "fly" is nourishment in the more explicit meaning, the "larger" meaning is that these things gleaned from our activated learning are meant for use within our mind... so it creates a continuous loop between the world back into the mind to venture forward again. "We sleep in the mornings / We dream of a ship that sails away/ A thousand miles away" is referencing the point near death... morning is when one awakes to the day so sleeping during it would be a sign of one's life slipping in the opposite direction of the rising morning. The "ship that sails away" is the whole of life and the world... it carries on without us after our passing. The "dream" could also be Memory... it slides away "a thousand miles away"... so far away at the moment that its movement would be indiscernible and more of an flight of fancy than an actuality... and it wouldn't matter... it would be but fantasy... one whose structure is wholly different from what we, the spider and I, are.

The final song on the album, and the end of our journey through time, from "before" to "after" science (I claim no objectivity in my assessment of the album's structure). A lullaby.

The protagonist is now with "Spider," who appears to be a literal spider. Perhaps reincarnated, perhaps perceiving omnisciently the preciousness of all life, we have passed through death (in the previous song) to a state of absolute peace. The glory of a single knit web, normally hated or ignored by humans, is seen for what it is -- the small, the unseen, the forgotten, the details, the imagination, sleep, dreams, rest, peace, drifting, after science -- I hope we can learn from all of these things when we design our next society. Eno seems hopeful; after all, what are humans except another in a long line of "random," quantum Earth mathematics?

First, there is significant sadness in the music, but a deep profound stillness as well. I always sensed that the lyrics were basically literal. He is laying in the sun possibly by the water, and gazing at a spider weaving or resting in its web. As a musician, he is neither composing or creating music, just enjoying the moment of stllness, feeling one with the spider, so insignificant, so small, yet a microcosm of the greater world. A world without sound can refer to Eno taking a break fromhis music and his career to just exist. The ship that sails away refers to his thoughts relaxing and drifting away as he unwinds from the daily stress of life as a human being. I don’t know... I just love this song. It’s haunting and lovely.

First, there is significant sadness in the music, but a deep profound stillness as well. I always sensed that the lyrics were basically literal. He is laying in the sun possibly by the water, and gazing at a spider weaving or resting in its web. As a musician, he is neither composing or creating music, just enjoying the moment of stllness, feeling one with the spider, so insignificant, so small, yet a microcosm of the greater world. A world without sound can refer to Eno taking a break fromhis music and his career to just exist. The ship that sails away refers to his thoughts relaxing and drifting away as he unwinds from the daily stress of life as a human being. I don’t know... I just love this song. It’s haunting and lovely.