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On Some Faraway Beach Lyrics
Given the chance
I'll die like a baby
On some faraway beach
When the season's over
Unlikely I'll be remembered
As the tide brushes sand in my eyes
I'll drift away
Cast up on a plateau
With only one memory
A single syllable
Oh lie low lie low, li-li-li-li li-li-lo
I'll die like a baby
On some faraway beach
When the season's over
As the tide brushes sand in my eyes
I'll drift away
With only one memory
A single syllable
Oh lie low lie low, li-li-li-li li-li-lo
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This song is incredible. I remember sitting on a beach in Mexico just listening to this tune over and over, staring at the vast ocean in front of me with no one else around. The words are sad but freeing at the same time. The narrator is choosing("given the chance I'll die like a baby") to leave everything behind--clearing his mind of all memories---drifting away, not fighting the tide anymore. Hard to say whether it's a romanticized vision of suicide or just his ideal resting place for when his dying day comes, but either way it's a powerful and emotional song. One of Eno's best and my personal favourite.
@Keith Angus Page
@Keith Angus Page
From a 1974 interview (conducted by Chrissie Hynde!):
Chrissie: What about the song which incorporated 27 pianos? – the one that was inspired by a dream...
Brian: "You mean 'On Some Faraway Beach'. It wasn't only inspired – all the words to that occurred in the dream. I quite often wake up and write down my dreams because I find them so completely mysterious. I can't see what it was in me that made me put together that particular combination of items.
"I find the dreams are always much more brilliant in their construction than anything I consciously think of. On that particular one, I just woke up with all these words in my head and I wrote them straight down in the dark. When writing from dreams, you don't feel any responsibility for what you do, which is important to me.
I agree with Keith Angus Page. I've seen many interpretations of this song where it is praised as calming and relaxing and (gulp) cheerful. Those people, I think, are conflating their attachments to the new-agey Eno of the 80s and 90s with the darker Eno of the 70s. Here the lush layers of guitar and synth and the existential lyrics make this an subtly ominous song, one that intermixes a sense of ecstasy with a deep desire for the release of death. It continues to blow my that someone created this in the early 70s.
I believe this is the most beautiful song I've heard for a while. I think that it is all about dying and going to heaven and maybe even Jesus's resurrection.
It's simply, just an amazing piece, that for me, has come through Brian Eno, that is in us all and connects us all. A wave from the collective unconscious and returning to the unconscious. I am deeply touched by this music. Thank you Brian.