In response to what Laocoon said about Stipe's contradictions, I think Stipe is taking a lot of common-held beliefs and deliberately juxtaposing them to show how ridiculous some are. For example, the "practice makes perfect/perfect is a fault" comparison reveals that everyone wants to try so hard and repeat their actions till they've refined them to perfection, yet everyone seems to despise things that are perfect. It's like the student in school who gets straight A's working his rear off...everyone else in the class secretly hates the kid because of what he's able to accomplish. Thus for me, the "fault lines change" line is about how the razor line cut by society on things that are good or not is very fickle, and as you said, we should accept this change and really not get down over it. Most of the illusions to youth work with this well too, as when you are young you build up all of your ideas and get them knocked down by people as you go through the years, and you either interpret the believe in change to be that you should be welcome to changing yourself or that people will change around you and might accept you over time. Either way, it's a very uplifting song.
@realitysoldier but as a musician, Stipe knows both that practice makes perfect, and that perfect is a fault. The perfection must be achieved, and then broken, to create true beauty. He is not mocking the aphorisms but exploring, deconstructing, transforming and reclaiming them.
@realitysoldier but as a musician, Stipe knows both that practice makes perfect, and that perfect is a fault. The perfection must be achieved, and then broken, to create true beauty. He is not mocking the aphorisms but exploring, deconstructing, transforming and reclaiming them.
In response to what Laocoon said about Stipe's contradictions, I think Stipe is taking a lot of common-held beliefs and deliberately juxtaposing them to show how ridiculous some are. For example, the "practice makes perfect/perfect is a fault" comparison reveals that everyone wants to try so hard and repeat their actions till they've refined them to perfection, yet everyone seems to despise things that are perfect. It's like the student in school who gets straight A's working his rear off...everyone else in the class secretly hates the kid because of what he's able to accomplish. Thus for me, the "fault lines change" line is about how the razor line cut by society on things that are good or not is very fickle, and as you said, we should accept this change and really not get down over it. Most of the illusions to youth work with this well too, as when you are young you build up all of your ideas and get them knocked down by people as you go through the years, and you either interpret the believe in change to be that you should be welcome to changing yourself or that people will change around you and might accept you over time. Either way, it's a very uplifting song.
@realitysoldier but as a musician, Stipe knows both that practice makes perfect, and that perfect is a fault. The perfection must be achieved, and then broken, to create true beauty. He is not mocking the aphorisms but exploring, deconstructing, transforming and reclaiming them.
@realitysoldier but as a musician, Stipe knows both that practice makes perfect, and that perfect is a fault. The perfection must be achieved, and then broken, to create true beauty. He is not mocking the aphorisms but exploring, deconstructing, transforming and reclaiming them.