I would agree that the content of this song has something to do with dreams or hopes.
Yet I wonder why noone has said anything about the title of the album and about 'Man Ray'.
The album is called "Fables of the Reconstruction" and describes the time of the huge economical growth in the USA at the end of the 19th century.
I think that every or at least most of the songs of this album describe historical things.
Man Ray was an artist. He belonged to the Dadaist movement which was a kind of protest against the society of that time.
What was the world like in that time ? The competition of the growing industrial countries (especially in Europe) for markets and ressources had caused the most violent time in history so far(the 1st World War and huge exploitation of the colonies). Millions of people were killed. Beautiful nature, countryside and towns were damaged by bombs and chemical weapons. A lot of people had to escape from violence and hunger.
This was the time were a lot of people dreamt of another world. The Dadaists changed the style of art as protest (look at Wikipedia.com to find out something about Dadaism), workers in St. Petersburg overthrew the Tsar and took the power on their own and in nearly all European countries new left-winged anti-capitalist movements emerged. The majority of the European people did realize that capitalism and ruthless greed was the reason for this war and they wanted something else. There were a lot of uprisings and capitalism was nearly on the edge.
In my opinion Michael Stipe expresses the conflict between 'the sky' (emerging anti-capitalist movements dreaming of another world) and 'the gravity' (those who wanted to reinstall the old order of profit and exploitation).
I would agree that the content of this song has something to do with dreams or hopes. Yet I wonder why noone has said anything about the title of the album and about 'Man Ray'. The album is called "Fables of the Reconstruction" and describes the time of the huge economical growth in the USA at the end of the 19th century. I think that every or at least most of the songs of this album describe historical things. Man Ray was an artist. He belonged to the Dadaist movement which was a kind of protest against the society of that time. What was the world like in that time ? The competition of the growing industrial countries (especially in Europe) for markets and ressources had caused the most violent time in history so far(the 1st World War and huge exploitation of the colonies). Millions of people were killed. Beautiful nature, countryside and towns were damaged by bombs and chemical weapons. A lot of people had to escape from violence and hunger. This was the time were a lot of people dreamt of another world. The Dadaists changed the style of art as protest (look at Wikipedia.com to find out something about Dadaism), workers in St. Petersburg overthrew the Tsar and took the power on their own and in nearly all European countries new left-winged anti-capitalist movements emerged. The majority of the European people did realize that capitalism and ruthless greed was the reason for this war and they wanted something else. There were a lot of uprisings and capitalism was nearly on the edge. In my opinion Michael Stipe expresses the conflict between 'the sky' (emerging anti-capitalist movements dreaming of another world) and 'the gravity' (those who wanted to reinstall the old order of profit and exploitation).