Although I'm sure that the meaning WT intended for this song is as simple as what everybody else has said, I interpret this song in a different way. I spend a lot of time thinking about the ethics of human existence in relationship to the other life forms around us (e.g. animal rights, eco-friendliness, whether to be vegetarian/vegan, et cetera), and the sad truth of it is that as one thing lives, it causes others to die. You could live nude in the woods and refrain from eating meat, but when you eat berries or fruit or vegetables, you may be depriving another herbivorous animal of food, or perhaps damaging the plant life; and every time you take a step you're probably killing an insect. The only way to truly cause no harm to any living thing would be to cease existing.
When I listen to this song, I think of it as a symbol of this idea. A boy dies soon after his birth; only by being dead can he exist in perfect harmony with the non-human world, because then he is causing absolutely no harm, and his decomposing body feeds the flora and fauna around him, causing him to become one with the woods.
Although I'm sure that the meaning WT intended for this song is as simple as what everybody else has said, I interpret this song in a different way. I spend a lot of time thinking about the ethics of human existence in relationship to the other life forms around us (e.g. animal rights, eco-friendliness, whether to be vegetarian/vegan, et cetera), and the sad truth of it is that as one thing lives, it causes others to die. You could live nude in the woods and refrain from eating meat, but when you eat berries or fruit or vegetables, you may be depriving another herbivorous animal of food, or perhaps damaging the plant life; and every time you take a step you're probably killing an insect. The only way to truly cause no harm to any living thing would be to cease existing.
When I listen to this song, I think of it as a symbol of this idea. A boy dies soon after his birth; only by being dead can he exist in perfect harmony with the non-human world, because then he is causing absolutely no harm, and his decomposing body feeds the flora and fauna around him, causing him to become one with the woods.