Green Light

"a single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been the end of a dock." -The Great Gatsby

if you've read The Great Gatsby then you see all of the connections and ties to it in this song:

"I kneel before the green light of her singing crayon eyes" in the book the green light represented Gatsby's view of Daisy and how she was the gateway to all of his dreams about the happiness he had once felt with her. And then JT Eckleburge's eyes on the bill board represented God (or something ubiquitous) that watched over the Valley of Ashes and the moral decay of society due to the "American dream."

"and then i kiss her stomach and it's then i realize her light is the night" Gatsby would stare at the green light on the end of Daisy's dock (her home) and one day Nick (the narrator) saw him doing this and reaching out his hand at the same time as if trying to reach for Daisy who was all the way across the lake.

"i'm not blind" Daisy was very aware of her trophy wife position in life and once said (about having a baby girl) "I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool... You see, I think everything's terrible anyhow... And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything."

"i believe in you" this could relate to what Nick commented about Gatsby's smile: "He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself."

"i see a green light i see a green light i see a green light" I see this relating to (because of the repetition) how Gatsby was set on the fact that Daisy was his means to an end for acheiving the "American Dream" (common theme in the book) and how he so badly wanted to feel the way he once did with her when he was young; "Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!" -Gatsby

i can think of two possible sources of inspiration for the green light thurston refers to in this song. the first and perhaps most cogent of the two is famous scene from hitchcock’s vertigo in which madeline walks into the hazy green light and scottie believes she is his dead lover (‘I believe in you’). The other green light is from the great gatsby. the green light comes from the end of daisy’s dock and comes to represent gatsby’s love for daisy. perhaps thurston was inspired by both of these green lights.

Ok I am just going to pick this song to comment on EVOL's conceptual unity. It explores aberrations of love not love itself. Hence EVOL.

I believe Thurston is saying, that before him and his girlfriend do anything, well...sex like, he wants to get the okay, and i think the okay in this song is the green light, and he believes in her, is he believes her, and it's alright.

i think you nailed it!

i love the line "im not blind, i believe in you"

Wrong.

i agree, mcbeans wrong, alot of sonic youths songs have slight references to drugs, so possibly 'crayon' is how he is describing her eyes at that time? just a thought.

you see a greenlight when you smoke the right thing i am pretty sure thurston talks here about drugs i have seen this green light too

I completely love this song. I wish Sonic Youth would give me the tabs for it. I never thought of it like what Garage Band Kind8 said but I like him for saying it. I think mybaboonheart might've nailed it. Sonic Youth definitely have a lot of Hitchcock references in their songs (Shadow of a Doubt).