Roads

In the Live version of this on the Roseland CD (which isn't actually recorded at Roseland btw), the quiver in Beth Gibbon's voice during the second "Ohh, can't anybody see" may be the single most beautiful word I have ever heard sung, without exaggeration. seriously.

It just sends chills up my arm every damn time, nearly 10 years on.

Actually (and I'm pretty sure that this is the accurate meaning) I think the song is about that moment in your life when you suddenly realize life isn't peaches and cream like you were told all your life. Usually around 18-22 years old, your quarter-life crisis. You struggle to adpat to the adult world and find yourself and find your way in life, this can include spirituality. Sturggle to be a good person and struggle to cope with the world's woes.......etc.

In my opinion, it's you being different from everyone else, being looked down upon, and having no one who agrees with what you are doing. You look for help, theres no one there. Thinking of alternatives, all you can come up with is to continue to try. After a while, and much consideration, you start to doubt what you are, and what makes you individual. So all in all, it's about rejection of who you are and no one wanting anything to do with who you are, and what you do.

To me this song is about loosing a sense of purpose, things feeling wrong and not understanding why, You turn to a freind for help help but people won't listen they're too selfish to even try and understand. They can't see whats going on and further more don't care.

i really think is about how difficult is find one person to share the life with. How alone we are. Everybody. Alone because we are always fighting in our relationships, always protecting ourselves against nothing. Everyday, many times a day, wiht our partner. She's alone because of this, and she's really tired and missing a different and unachievable way of live. (I'm spanish, sorry for my english)

To me, this song is about apathy and how people today are losing touch with their spirituality. This loss of spirit conicides with the increasing amount of commercialism in the western world and the growing gap between first world and third world countires.

This song has to do with trying to be and do what the "norm" is. It reminds me of when I came to the conclusion I am gay.

"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact..."

To me, it represents a losing battle within yourself for happiness/fulfillment...manifesting itself as a war with the outside world...in a search for self-fulfillment through others/things...an unfilled void..."I've got nobody on my side and surely that ain't right". I think as you grow older, past college, 20's ...you realize life is a useless struggle-a war between your true self and society's expectations ( work, family, etc)...you have a war to fight...never find your way...going through life alone - because of the addiction to material things and other people...a useless means to true love and happiness...because you don't fit in just being yourself...and the struggle to fit in is the reason that you never found your way...now that it is too late because you "fit in"...how can it feel this wrong?

it sounds like beth is singing about waking up and realizing that she has always done--and this same something is something that her society practices--is wrong. it seems to her like she is the only person that realizes it. (can't anybody see) for example: this is how a nazi would feel upon realizing that the nazis are committing a horrible evil. this is how a white southerner in the mid 1900's would feel upon realizing that that racial injustice is wrong. etc. etc. she's trying to wake society up to fight this wrong (we've got a war to fight) but at the same time it feels strange to her that something she has always practiced and never questioned--is now wrong in her own eyes. (from this moment, how can it feel this wrong)