Hollow

This 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"

Love 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.

I 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.

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".

It'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".

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

Every 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.

I think it's about some kind of mental illness

this 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

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