This song really speaks to me, and always has. I have dissociative
tendencies, having only recently remembered trauma from 30+ years ago.
To me, the boy in the belfry is the part of the psyche that holds the
trauma until it's safe enough to feel it and grow past it. The bells
are a signal from the unconscious that life isn't okay the way it is:
the horrors of the past must eventually be reckoned with. The
longings and homesickness are a side effect of this type of coping
mechanism: some good things have to be banished along with the bad, to
be remembered only when it's safe to remember everything.
This song really speaks to me, and always has. I have dissociative tendencies, having only recently remembered trauma from 30+ years ago. To me, the boy in the belfry is the part of the psyche that holds the trauma until it's safe enough to feel it and grow past it. The bells are a signal from the unconscious that life isn't okay the way it is: the horrors of the past must eventually be reckoned with. The longings and homesickness are a side effect of this type of coping mechanism: some good things have to be banished along with the bad, to be remembered only when it's safe to remember everything.