"the polar bear was a symbol (zoo-wise) for me of insensible savagery caged to be stared at. or something like that...? "
R. Smith, December 1990
here's the dylan thomas poem thought to have inspired it:
"Love In The Asylum"
A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds
Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.
Strait in the mazed bed
She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds
Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room,
At large as the dead,
Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.
She has come possessed
Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall,
Possessed by the skies
She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust
Yet raves at her will
On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears.
And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.
as for what it means to me, well...
"I'll turn into the melting man
I'll lose my life
To feel I feel desire"
i've always felt this is saying that his feelings for her make him melt away[implying he's frozen inside] and disappear[leave], because he doesn't feel comfortable with the desire he feels for her
"Oh I should feel
Like a polar bear...
It's impossible"
and this says he wishes he were a polar bear[something that lives in places FULL of ice, but they don't melt away], so he could feel desire for her without "melting"(or leaving). yet, it's impossible...probably due to the kind of girl she is and he feels inadequate.
so this song, for me, is loving someone i can't really handle, someone i wish i could be close to, but my desire scares me and i don't think i'm capable of dealing with the idea of pursuing the person, so i melt away...though i wish things were different. i wish i were a polar bear.
"the polar bear was a symbol (zoo-wise) for me of insensible savagery caged to be stared at. or something like that...? " R. Smith, December 1990
here's the dylan thomas poem thought to have inspired it:
"Love In The Asylum"
A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head, A girl mad as birds
Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume. Strait in the mazed bed She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds
Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room, At large as the dead, Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.
She has come possessed Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall, Possessed by the skies
She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust Yet raves at her will On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears.
And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last I may without fail Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.
as for what it means to me, well...
"I'll turn into the melting man I'll lose my life To feel I feel desire"
i've always felt this is saying that his feelings for her make him melt away[implying he's frozen inside] and disappear[leave], because he doesn't feel comfortable with the desire he feels for her
"Oh I should feel Like a polar bear... It's impossible"
and this says he wishes he were a polar bear[something that lives in places FULL of ice, but they don't melt away], so he could feel desire for her without "melting"(or leaving). yet, it's impossible...probably due to the kind of girl she is and he feels inadequate.
so this song, for me, is loving someone i can't really handle, someone i wish i could be close to, but my desire scares me and i don't think i'm capable of dealing with the idea of pursuing the person, so i melt away...though i wish things were different. i wish i were a polar bear.
this is one of my favorites.