"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - one of the most famous speeches in the play. It's about the passage of time, which is perverted and made unnatural in the duration of the play. There are also lots of other references to time in the song ("tick tock tick tock," etc.)
"Starting from the time you get this letter...it might not be what you expected" - The witches prophecy that Macbeth will be king, but instead of this being a joyous thing he starts murdering everything and things get more and more terrible.
"You're big enough to stop pretending" - Illusion plays a big part in Macbeth. At first Lady Macbeth is completely fine with all the murder and is convinced that she and her husband can still be pure and innocent. Over time though she realizes the horror of what's going on.
"Boys will be boys...they always said that sex would change you" - Over the course of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth somewhat change places in terms of traditional gender roles. When at first he's reluctant to commit the murders, she teases him and says he's not being manly enough. She also rejects traditional motherhood and is very driven to attain a higher status (like a man, traditionally, at least in Shakespeare's time.) Later though Macbeth gets caught up in all the murdering and is a "man," but a crazy one.
"The knife is nearing" - Macbeth hallucinates a bloody knife hovering toward him before committing his first murder.
"The whole charade is ending...caught up in a long life of regretting" - Macbeth often expresses sentiments that he is jealous of the people he's killed, because he's so tortured by what he's done. He feels like death is the only true peacefulness.
"Once you get a taste for it you keep on cutting" - Once he commits one murder he can't stop.
"You never know when it will end, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - At the end of the play Macbeth, now king, is killed. At the beginning of the play he killed the original king, so it's like the cycle is starting over.
....I don't know how that all meshes with the other interpretations of the song, which all seem pretty sound. But we just studied Macbeth and this song just jumped out at me...thoughts?
Did anyone else catch the Macbeth allusions?
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - one of the most famous speeches in the play. It's about the passage of time, which is perverted and made unnatural in the duration of the play. There are also lots of other references to time in the song ("tick tock tick tock," etc.)
"Starting from the time you get this letter...it might not be what you expected" - The witches prophecy that Macbeth will be king, but instead of this being a joyous thing he starts murdering everything and things get more and more terrible.
"You're big enough to stop pretending" - Illusion plays a big part in Macbeth. At first Lady Macbeth is completely fine with all the murder and is convinced that she and her husband can still be pure and innocent. Over time though she realizes the horror of what's going on.
"Boys will be boys...they always said that sex would change you" - Over the course of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth somewhat change places in terms of traditional gender roles. When at first he's reluctant to commit the murders, she teases him and says he's not being manly enough. She also rejects traditional motherhood and is very driven to attain a higher status (like a man, traditionally, at least in Shakespeare's time.) Later though Macbeth gets caught up in all the murdering and is a "man," but a crazy one.
"The knife is nearing" - Macbeth hallucinates a bloody knife hovering toward him before committing his first murder.
"The whole charade is ending...caught up in a long life of regretting" - Macbeth often expresses sentiments that he is jealous of the people he's killed, because he's so tortured by what he's done. He feels like death is the only true peacefulness.
"Once you get a taste for it you keep on cutting" - Once he commits one murder he can't stop.
"You never know when it will end, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - At the end of the play Macbeth, now king, is killed. At the beginning of the play he killed the original king, so it's like the cycle is starting over.
....I don't know how that all meshes with the other interpretations of the song, which all seem pretty sound. But we just studied Macbeth and this song just jumped out at me...thoughts?