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Castles and Factories Lyrics
Believe you me, there's little people in the trees.
Dangling their candy dreams, trading castles for factories.
Convince me (Convince me, Convince me), there's something better to rely on.
Frame your nonsense on the wall, then pin it to a waterfall.
Will you please, will you turn off the machine?
Drawing conclusions with the pencil in your hand.
Drawing bridges to remind you where you stand.
Where do you stand, where do you stand?
Can you believe, there's a tailor in the sky, he sews white pockets for tears.
Collecting raindrops from your eyes.
Incomplete (incomplete, incomplete), it's one belief against the other.
When constellations weep, we are bound to one another.
What do you see, when you turn off the tv?
Drawing conclusions with the pencil in your hand.
Drawing bridges to remind you where you stand.
Where do you stand, where do you stand?
Where do you, where do you stand?
There's little people in the trees.
They're trading castles for factories.
Have I convinced you of anything?
Dangling their candy dreams, trading castles for factories.
Convince me (Convince me, Convince me), there's something better to rely on.
Frame your nonsense on the wall, then pin it to a waterfall.
Will you please, will you turn off the machine?
Drawing bridges to remind you where you stand.
Where do you stand, where do you stand?
Collecting raindrops from your eyes.
Incomplete (incomplete, incomplete), it's one belief against the other.
When constellations weep, we are bound to one another.
What do you see, when you turn off the tv?
Drawing bridges to remind you where you stand.
Where do you stand, where do you stand?
Where do you, where do you stand?
They're trading castles for factories.
Have I convinced you of anything?
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This song could mean one of two things for me. The simplified version is that we are relying entirely too much on media and technology to form our opinions about the world. The lines "What do you see when you turn off the TV", paired with the absurdity of the statements "believe you me, there are little people in the trees" and "there's a tailor in the sky" seem to suggest that we draw blindly from what we're presented in media and technology, and the song is asking us where we stand when we "turn off the machine."
But I'm more inclined to think that the repeated use (and variation) of the line "where do you stand?" is speaking of more than that. Where do you stand when "you turn off the TV"? What are your beliefs when you're not relying "on the machine"? To me this could be saying that to believe in something enough that you would stand up for it is better than utter apathy (possibly engendered by "the machine"?). Believing that there are little people in the trees or tailors in the sky, if you're willing to stand for that, is better than no belief at all.
I like that answer above, and its probably very right. (I never ask thetm what their songs about... but they do often talk about it at concerts.) Something they have said about this song is that its about how there is no real truth, and its all what you perceive. so yeah.