Memory Lane

this song is about being isolated and medicated and terrified of absolutely everything in life. it's a horrifying, short, quiet song that has no positive note to it. elliott cautions

"if it's your decision to be open about yourself be careful or else"

in such a manner that suggests he never opens up about himself anymore than his patented sad, drowning sentiments and thoughtful lamentations on his life suggest. he doesnt trust anyone.

i think "from a basement on the hill" refers to being ina situation in which you're being lifted up or on the rise or going up (i.e. the upward slope of a hill) which is basiacally elliott's fame, but you're stuck in the basement, the lowest level, the very bottom, of that top, on the hill. he's just being his old, negative self. you've got to love him for that

Sure he may of been in a mental house at the time, but I don't think this song is only about that...that is one example and he didn't get there in one day...For me this song strikes a deep chord and I take it to be about how you feel different from society whether it be inferior or weaker or different, and society notices that and "they send you back to bed" or back to wanting to isolate your self due to how different you feel (especially if you suffer from mental illness such as depression), and in doing so trigger emotions of despair and depression. Down the only road it ever takes, is depression. Anyone who has been in isolation knows all too well that it is a dark and colorless place. "youll keep your doors and windows shut" is about you keeping your self locked away and isolated and never showing a soul who you really are due to fear of rejection and more bad feelings...and isolation will always push you down the only road it ever takes wich is depression...not death but despair...

Ah, actually think it's very much 'tongue in cheek' But yeah he recorded it in the basement in the house on the hill. So alone and keeping up with those things that relax him. While fearing what he may become

This song he wrote when he was checked into a psychiatric hospital, i don't know when that was but the earliest live version i have heard was from 97... that just an indication of how old this song is. this is what the lyrics were back then

this is the place you'll up when you lose the chase it's the patch or in the pill to make you easier to kill and all anybody knows is you look messed up they inspect you in the head and send you back to bed isolation draws into it static into night builds a little house for you to stay but everybody's scared of this place they're staying away no one counts in memory lane it's just as it appears everybody fears just to see u try to get there evasive piece to fit the part they never knew because they did not want to you keep the doors and windows shut and you'll never show a soul again but isolation draws into it static into night builds a little house for you to stay but everybody's scared of this place and staying away no one counts in memory lane if it's your decision to be open about yourself be careful or else you better be careful or else uncomfortable apart it's all written on my chart and I take what's given me most cooperatively I do what people say and lie in bed all day but im never going to cry under the doctors eye isolation draws into it static into night builds a little house for you to stay but everybody's scared of this place and stayin away no one counts in memory lane

The lyrics did get changed a lot between then and the basement version.

this song is about him being in mental house

I kind of see the mental house thing as being a metaphor for something like how his past is upsetting and "Theres a place we all go when we lose the chase" is like when everythign is going good and them something bad happens that reminds you of your past, and how it's happened before. You get wrapped up in your past and your memories and it's not a good kind of remembering, it haunts him - "everybody's scared of this place". "i hope you're satisfied, isolation pushes past self hatred, guilt and shame" I think that this line kind of shows how it's about a past relatioship, maybe this is after a break-up ... and he's remembering how it's all happened before and he's upset about it all ... and is wrapped up in all of the happy moments they had together and now that its relaly over it haunts him.

Maybe im twisting this around too much, I don't know. haha

This song is very obviously about being in an asylum. The first few lines are saying that an asylum is a place that no one ever wants to go to, and especially in this case, it was forced incarceration, essentially. 'Basement on a hill" is that point where you still have a mental illness, and everything isn't peachy, but your are dealing with it to your standards. Nevertheless, people want to fix you because you are "not like them." And mental issues must be ruthlessly dealt with in our society. Also, the "not like them line" speaks of the stigma attached to mental illness. Other parts of the song like "the mayors name is fear," and "doctor spoke a cloud" speak of the bleak labels doctors tend to throw on you, telling you how you are so ill and must be controlled, also sing the publics fear of mentally ill people to justify things they do to them. The mountain of cliches refers not only to people's jaded and incorrect assumptions of mentally ill people, but also of the useless bromides that people and doctors tend to throw at people to try and help them, of course such cliches are useless. For me, the most powerful line is: "isolation pushes past self hatred, guilt and shame to a place where suffering is just a game" I think since mental illness is so stigmatized and misunderstood, people have a tendency to think of mental patients as somewhat less than human. Even psychiatrists do this. To the doctors, the patients aren't really people but simply cases to be studied, regardless of the patient's wishes. Similarly, the general public sees all mentally ill people as either dangerous or weird to the point of being intolerable. The intolerable ones are made fun of and become spectacles or are ignored, and sometimes worse. The ones seen as 'dangerous' (regardless or whether or not they actually are) are seen as subhuman things which need to be confined and controlled, usually by force, because the assumption is that if lest alone they will invariably hurt someone, which is simply not the case.

it's about his stay at a psychiatric hospital.

he was so amazing why do only the good die young?

This song is perfect

I really, really like this song

Be careful or else