Pyramids

There is quite clearly 2 parts to this song, story and beat-wise.

First half depicts Cleopatra, an ancient figure in egyptian history, the 2nd part cleverly starts with a prostitute waking up in las vegas and the narrator has given her the name "Cleopatra" and how he falls in love with her etc, just a real brief overview

"What good is a jewel that ain't still precious?"

"It has killed Cleopatra"

"But your love ain't free no more"

I feel it is the loss of sacredness, perhaps the sacredness of the "feminine" (not to be confused with women, but the feminine symbolically);

mystery, sacredness itself, creation, beauty, wisdom, love...

The second half is pretty self-explanatory: a man who has fallen in love with a dancer/prostitute and they had a falling out.

But the first half, which I find much more interesting, seems to be about a loss of essence. When he sings "the jewel of Africa - what good is a jewel that ain't still precious?", it reminds me of losing what makes this woman beautiful. She's been tainted, perhaps by the profession or the world she lives in, and has lost her sparkle and her essence. "Sending the cheetahs to the tomb" would be trying to find her in her "final resting place" aka a strip club/some motel/etc.

Anyway. Love this song.

I like how whoever wrote this specifically wrote John Mayer guitar solo.

I feel that this song is very archetypal, especially the use of alluding to Egyptian and African female "goddesses".. almost like it's alluding to the loss of life in all of us, that comes with the destruction of the sacred...

This song seems to be about how his former "Queen", Cleopatra, has been ruined. She was his idol, but then he found her "laying down with Sampson." He says "The jewel of Africa What good is a jewel that ain't still precious?" And then his view of women has changed forever. Until now, his Cleopatra works at a strip club, he pimps her for money. He is unemployed and she pays his bills. She has sex with him, but she doesn't love him anymore, because he doesn't pay her. What a conundrum...

I see at least two possible double meanings and interpretations, both seem to have been touched on.

One is a lament and call to action about the fall of Africans from being the pharaohs and queens of the ancient world to being little more than slaves and strippers and pimps in the modern world. This meaning is really well explored in rap genius so I'll leave it at that.

The second is a sense of trying to regain a sense of the sacred and mystical in the modern world. I don't think the video throws all those odd spiritual and surreal images into the song by accident.

We're all trying to drown ourselves in absinthe (known to cause hallucinations, but it's a myth) and sex and violence and fancy motorcycles and champagne and fancy jazz music and money but we're all still longing for more. We long to have crazy meaningful experiences like when the guitar solo comes on and Ocean sees the major symbol of Kabbalah, which has different meanings, but is almost always a type of Jewish mystical map of humanity's path up to the divine. Usually this includes some sort of trying to reunite the male and female aspects of God and oneself, again connecting with the evident male/female dichotomy of the song. Also see the alternately beautiful and disfigured faces of the strippers at the club. Ocean also looks to be alternately horrified at the scene and laughing with glee at the strippers shakin it.

It also sounds sometimes like the chorus is saying 'working up the pyramid tonight', possibly referencing Kabbalah again, i.e. working one's way up to the divine, the top of the pyramid. Pyramids in ancient Egypt were pointing skyward to the heavens, the divine, the sun. Of course this would be ironic since he's in a strip club most of the time and the pyramid could mean a cock, but maybe he's simply saying that the modern age is too materialistic and that its God is merely sex and possessions, or maybe he's saying that the divine can even be found in strip clubs and broke rundown pimps. Maybe he's saying both.

Interestingly, this song could also be about the divine's relation to itself. It was united and glorious at one point, and now it's in this weird state of limbo, separated from its self. "Your love ain't free no more." Again, I think the video didn't accidentally just throw these last words into the song: "All we've got is each other. The truth is obsolete. Our sons and daughters are just candles in the sun, let them see the light..."

Again, this is a common mystical theme: sparks trying to reunite with their source, the sun, etc. We're all workin at the pyramid tonight until we can leave...

"But your love ain't free no more"

It's about falling in love with a woman who sells her love in one form or another.

Could be turning a trick, stripping, or hustling to get tips and all that comes with that. She's beautiful and he loves her but he knows she's paid to show love to others.

Great music video too.

Thought provoking as hell.

IIRC Frank Ocean actually had (er, has?) a relative who's also a pimp. I imagine the 2nd half of this is about the sex industry from the point of view of the man selling, and presumably living with, a woman whose 'love ain't free no more' (and so does that mean that the woman is no longer free herself?)