Alice in Chains – Hollow

My OpinionThis IS about the dulce incident, not sure i spelt that right, but its a underground grey alien base where humans work together with them, its a hollowed out mountain, and its "easier to fend off the weaker things"

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  @Kiwi hard
  +1

  @Kiwi hard
  All the lyrics fit with this idea. Crazy to think about but also the most intriguing.

  Flag Colt1232on June 05, 2017  

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  @Kiwi hard I remember Jerry mentioned something like that in an interview

  Flag Counterclockwerkon February 06, 2018  

General CommentLove this song... Very reminiscent of AIC's original sound. No, it's not the same without Layne, but it's still got that same dark grungy vibe. The video for this is worth a watch. Can't wait for the new album coming out in May.

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  @RebelParty
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  This song affects me very much, its banging my head more heavily than "Would" does. I've been long thinking about the meaning of "being as hollow as mountain", now how deeply sad I feel it is to be one !
  
  That hollow mountain is both AIC and Layne ..... Once they were a great mountain soulwise, crowned with a cold blue sky (reference to both Layne and Jerry's eyes), they were so drilled and tunneled with lots, seeing all of the faces life can show, withered and ugly that the remain is a vast hollowness, so now "Silence (after Layne's gone) is so loud, not letting tell them up from down".
  
  "All of your colors turn to grey
  Don't even matter anyway
  Bleeding impressions where you were tied
  Can't really say how you lost your mind" ..... These are all for Layne ! Maybe this is the song they told written for Layne.
  
  " ... easy to feed off a weaker thing, harder to say what I really mean".
  I sense a mild criticism here towards Layne, as if saying " you chose the easy way and left me with the hard part of the life".
  
  
  

  Flag kritiyason May 06, 2013  

General CommentI've been long thinking about the meaning of "being as hollow as mountain", now how deeply sad I feel it is to be one !

That hollow mountain is both AIC and Layne ..... Once they were a great mountain soulwise, crowned with a cold blue sky (reference to both Layne and Jerry's eyes), they were so drilled and tunneled with lots, seeing all of the faces life can show, withered and ugly that the remain is a vast hollowness, so now "Silence (after Layne's gone) is so loud, not letting tell them up from down".

"All of your colors turn to grey
Don't even matter anyway
Bleeding impressions where you were tied
Can't really say how you lost your mind" ..... These are all for Layne ! Maybe this is the song they told written for Layne.

" ... easy to feed off a weaker thing, harder to say what I really mean".
I sense a mild criticism here towards Layne, as if saying " you chose the easy way and left me with the hard part of the life".

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  @kritiyas

General CommentIt's about decisions we take upon our lives, putting jobs/hobbies/obsessions upon everything else (like our family and friends) and then you realize that after all choices you've made to achieve your goal there is nothing but "silence".

"Turning in circles, slowing down
Pulling against a closing out
Easy to feed off a weaker thing
Harder to say what I really mean"

First line is about how we take our lives in circles, always slowing down because of our age and etc., following this point it leads to the second line
Second line refers to the attempt of doing something that is impossible.
Third line is kind of self explanatory, we tend to do things that are easier (or deal with "easy people") because, well, they are easier.
Fourth line is about how hard is to tell people what we really want to do, so we have 2 options: do the thing we want to and surprise everyone (for good or bad) or live with this frustration of never doing what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives.

"Hollow as a mountain
All tunneled and drilled below
Hollow as a mountain
Crowned with a cold blue sky"

In the chorus it "jumps" to the time where we are already broken by our decision, it is pretty self explanatory.

Then it goes back to the process of turning into this "hollow mountain":

"All of your colors turn to grey
Don't even matter anyway
Bleeding impressions where you were tied
Can't really say how you lost your mind"

First line: Grey refers to dead.
Second line is saying that we don't care that we are turning into dead because we are satisfied with our decision.
Third line is interesting: the definition that blood has here is that it's what is still living inside us and it's coming from something we were tied before, in this case our past lives before taking the life changing decision.
Fourth line is self explanatory.

Then it goes back to the chorus, again moving in the future where the decision already broke our lives.

"Silence so loud
Silence, I can't tell my up from down
Silence so loud
Silence, I can't tell my up from down"

Self explanatory part where it says that we lost all the contact with friends/family we had because of our decision, and life is so sad that we can't tell our "up from down".

"All of the faces life can show
Withered and ugly, the one you know"

This part tells how life treated us bad because of our decision, we expected much more but all we got from it was a withered and ugly face staring at us while our life is falling into pieces.


That's my definition for the lyrics, I made this up while watching the music video...everything was clear for me after I finished watching it thinking by this point of view that I "created".

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  @Deitri

General CommentAn addiction has hollowed him out, and now the drug feeds off him when he used to feed off the drug

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  @Alice_in_Soundweezer

General CommentI think the song and the clip are really matching about the theme : Hollow merely deals with slipping into mental breakdown and alienation when you're remaining alone for too long, just like the astronaut who can't stand his loneliness and the estrangement with his loved ones.
In an almost psychotic way, your vitality is burning out and in the end all what's left is emptiness.

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  @Gendo62

General CommentEvery song I see from AIC the general consensus seems to be either about Layne or Heroin. As beloved as he is and even though he ultimately lost that battle, not EVERY SINGLE LYRIC is about those two things. Come on people, open your minds a little bit. Think a little deeper, it's obvious that AIC does.

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  @michael8ql

Song Meaningthis could relate to Layne's life after the death of Demri in 1996.

Layne, the "mountain" of a man in the rock scene, but hollow inside following her death.

Blue skies = blue eyes

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  @dmhennen

General CommentI think it's a metaphor for spiraling into insanity. Brilliant song.

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  @Soundtallica

General CommentI have listened to this song nonstop for a week now, it's how I breakdown a song's meaning. I believe this is a song about Layne and his addiction. He was a mountain of a man in his stage presence, and all of the talent he brought to AIC's fame and fortune. He was hollow however, especially after Demri's death. Tunnels and drilled below referring to heroin tracks and the underlying rot and decay from such use.

All of your colors turned to gray/don't matter/bleeding impressions/lost your mind refers to his world losing it's luster after her death and just sinking deeper into depression and drug addiction, "turning in circles, slowing down" .

For Layne, the silence of his private life away from any human contact in his final years, must have been so loud, and drugs were his only way, that he couldn't tell his up from down.

This song is not a slam against Layne, but rather a maudlin reminder of what he went through, and how he lived and died in his final days, with a haunting chorus of his friends describing what it must have been like for him, and their helplessness to prevent it all from happening.

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  @CavemanTech