Bittersweet Symphony

Song MeaningThis is a brilliant song. It is about the feeling of being trapped and powerless to change your behavior or your life due to circumstances beyond your control. It is about the sense of desperation you feel as your life passes before your eyes and you struggle unsuccessfully to control and shape it. It is about the perpetual conflict between the path you want to follow and the path you are compelled to follow.

Walking down a busy London street is a metaphor for how he feels about his life. He walks down the street and is almost hit by a passing car, runs into people, walks over a car hood that is in his path, etc. As a result everyone is annoyed — even angry with him. When a young woman confronts him physically he calmly and resolutely moves forward along his path without a trace of animosity or anger. People are critical and disdainful of the path he is walking — insisting he should be able to avoid these obstacles— to choose a better, safer and more conscientious path to walk. But he feels completely powerless to change his speed and direction. His path is mandated and not chosen by him.

He knows emphatically that he could be different — be a better person and live a different, more meaningful life. He knows if it were merely up to him he could change (“I can change, I can change, I can change”), but the circumstances of his life have cast him into a rigid mold that keeps him on a steady trajectory, limiting his choices. It isn’t his lack of ability, intelligence, imagination or flexibility that is holding him back (“I’m a million different people from one day to the next”) but the circumstances of the culture / world into which he was born.

He wants more meaning in his life. But the overriding importance of the pursuit of making a living is always threatening to squeeze out his uniqueness, nullify his aptitudes and mold his path to a formal structure of daily life that he had no part in designing. He wants to be a better person. Yet, he continually finds himself walking down the same familiar self-destructive paths, despite his effort to avoid them. There is never a time when he can break free of this mold because he is stuck in a pattern of behavior until he dies.

He can’t accept this. Because this is the only life he will ever have, he is pressed with frequent internal anguish. He is on the verge of breaking and is walking through life in a fog. He doesn’t generally pray, but he is getting desperate. He gets down on his knees to pray — if only to hear the sound his own voice recognizing the frustration he feels. Any sound of compassion - any recognition of his pain - is better than the silence. He prays sincerely, earnestly and desperately. While he is pleading and making his case, his prayer is like a melody that helps him to feel better. It is a song that clears his mind, grounds him and makes him feel like he can break free of his mold and change his life. But it is a false hope. When he finishes praying there is only silence. God does not answer him. The airwaves are clean without a trace of anything but static. For all his singing, no one is singing to him now. He has no idea what to do and finds himself just as discouraged and helpless as before. There must be more to life than this (“Vanity, vanity: all is vanity and striving after the wind” ).

This experience is a microcosm for the whole of his life — a Bittersweet Symphony. There are periods of clarity, beauty and temporary relief in his life. Yet, it is all encapsulated by an overall theme that is heart rending — like waking suddenly from a warm, peaceful dream to find that you are back in cold, dark room — unchanged and unmoved by your dreams.

He can’t accept the path his life has taken, but he has no choice. He will be in perpetual conflict with his situation. He is immobilized in his mold and has no choice but to continue down this path, accepting all its adverse consequences, until it the path finally comes to an end at the place “where all things meet” - Death.

• 10 Replies Log in to reply

General CommentFor me it means exactly what Richard Ashcroft says before he performs it in concert. Life is like a symphony, but bittersweet in that you have rules and regulations imposed on it and that people are just governed by money and will only be as successful as the amount of it they have. As the man wrote the song, I will go along with his assessment.

• No Replies Log in to reply

General Commentits about the belief that you should live your own life. and live that life everyday as if its your last day. cause ultimately thats all youre doing is living each day getting closer and closer to death. dont let sex and money and other material things become what defines your goals in life. very powerful song. lyrically excellent. singer is pretty ugly too.

• 1 Reply Log in to reply

General Commentgreat song

• No Replies Log in to reply

General Commentdosent it just want to make you walk down the street walking into people.

• 1 Reply Log in to reply

General Commentthat damn violin part gets stuck in my head like no other ...

• No Replies Log in to reply

General CommentThe way I see it..hes living his life, making his money, and not real happy with the way things are..but its bittersweet, because he cant really complain. Also, the "change" he says that he can change it, he can change his unhappiness, but he is in routine, he is in his "mould"..he wants to go on in life and do his thing, but he wants it to change..and him, others, arent totally happy with it, he doesnt know what he wants (a million people from one day to the next) but he want to change it, because he needs something new.

• No Replies Log in to reply

My InterpretationThis to me is about one man's stubborn refusal to recognise himself and his own desires. As a result, he's "a million different people from one day to the next". He can't change himself. He doesn't know how.

• No Replies Log in to reply

General CommentIt's a working class hymn, as the album title suggests: a grinding endless string of meaningless jobs, fear, sex and violence, until the average person can't tell who or what they are, but figures out they might as well just push on through. Life never let's up and music is the only momentary release, the only moment when someone else's will isn't more powerful than his own.

• No Replies Log in to reply

General CommentThe samples from ' The Last Time ' not the original but from an orchestral album of Stones hits.

• No Replies Log in to reply