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Wonderful Remark Lyrics
How can you stand the silence
That pervades when we all cry?
How can you watch the violence
That erupts before your eyes?
How can you tell us something
Just to keep us hangin' on?
Something that just don't mean nothing
When we see it you are gone
Clinging to some other rainbow
While we're standing, waiting in the cold
Telling us the same old story
Knowing time is growing old.
That was a Wonderful Remark
I had my eyes closed in the dark
I sighed a million sighs
I told a million lies - to myself - to myself
How can we listen to you
When we know your talk is cheap?
How can we ever question
Why we give more and you keep?
How can your empty laughter
Fill a room like ours with joy
When you're only playing with us
Like a child does with a toy?
How can we ever feel the freedom
Or the flame lit by the spark
How can we ever come out even
When reality is stark?
That was a Wonderful Remark
I had my eyes closed in the dark - yeah
I sighed a million sighs
I told a million lies - to myself - to myself
Baby to myse - e - e - elf
(etc. to fade)
Produced by Robbie Robertson
from the film "King of Comedy" and included on The Best of Van Morrison album.
It's about Richard Nixon's presidency and all the lies he told! - this is what I first thought when I heard it - Van was very political at one point!
@VANTHEMAN not sure how all of you missed this so bad,Van is from Ireland, which @ the time was under the heavy hand control of England, so if you listen it's pretty much the struggle of Ireland under England's repression, how can you stand the violence is in regards to the northern Irish Republican Army and their bloody battles with England how can we give more and you keep refers to the high tax burden Ireland had to pay To England It's a self explanatory song if you actually listen to it it's destroyed from iron is full from Ireland...
@VANTHEMAN not sure how all of you missed this so bad,Van is from Ireland, which @ the time was under the heavy hand control of England, so if you listen it's pretty much the struggle of Ireland under England's repression, how can you stand the violence is in regards to the northern Irish Republican Army and their bloody battles with England how can we give more and you keep refers to the high tax burden Ireland had to pay To England It's a self explanatory song if you actually listen to it it's destroyed from iron is full from Ireland to free self in the control of England
To me this song is very personal. It resembles a man who has made promises to himself for instance goals for making his life better but he fails time after time to fulfill them resorting back to his old ways. But then he may finally come true to his goals and someone notices where he may have not and makes a nice remark reinstalling the confidence he once had in himself. Or he may not have fulfilled these goals but someone recognises the potential that he has in himself reminding him that he is capable of making his life better.
This is clearly about God. The reference to a rainbow is biblical. The rainbow is the sign of a promise from God. The song is set up like some psalms in the bible where the message is essentially a complaint to God. But at the end of psalme that are structured like this the writers attitude shifts to trust and hope and faith in God. Van's lyrics are a strong complaint to God and the we have to imagine that God answers him, giving him hope and faith. And Van says.. That was a wonderful remark. Then Van acknowledges that he was ignorant in his complaint.. I had my eyes closed in the dark. The song is beautiful and a modern psalm written by Van.
Everyone's got their own interpretations on this song, which is fine. To me it's about personal alienation from powerful talking heads in media and politics. The spin insincere stories while average people feel disconnected. It was featured on Martin Scorsese's brilliant movie King of Comedy, which is about similar subject matter.
The only thing this song could possiably be about, in my oppinion, is that girl that you can get in a fight with, and hate, and while not talking to her build up your haterd, telling yourself its over, but then she says something or you see her, and all you said/thought before is over, and whatever she sais is a "Wonderful Remark"
Stop the denial. This song is about god!
@edxavier I think you are absolutely right. The Hindu God creates the universe for its own amusement, "like a child playing with her toys", while we suffer and get only occasional glimpses of what is really going on. The under-theme is the theological problem of evil, the challenge to a god who could supposedly prevent evil, to do so.
@edxavier I think you are absolutely right. The Hindu God creates the universe for its own amusement, "like a child playing with her toys", while we suffer and get only occasional glimpses of what is really going on. The under-theme is the theological problem of evil, the challenge to a god who could supposedly prevent evil, to do so.
Van got his Wonderful remark