I didn't pick up on this until I read all the other peoples good comments here, but I am now feeling like there is something of an anti-essentialist meaning here as well as the anti-determinism the others have noted (ie our lives are not pre-determined by god's plan). Something about how reality as we know it is shaped by us and our language (there isn't anything essentially 'horse' about a horse, it could just as easily be called a 'table' - but would it mean the same thing or not?) and it's hard to say if there is a reality sepparate from our perceptions of it. Or something like that. Here's why I'm thinking this way:
The person in the song is told that his fundamental truths are not true: "And I don't know where I stand / Not since someone informed me / That my house was built on sand". Then, when he looks closer at the reality around him, it all falls apart (the buildings, the house on sand) or it never actually existed (the horse, the earth).
The following lines have one thing in common - they all point to someone discovering that the things that they thought were essentialy real are not:
That my house was built on sand / And it's not the earth beneath me / It's just the concept of the land
And I'm standing on the corner / When the buildings they all fell
You know you can't ride the concept of the horse / But still I try
But there's something that unnerves me / Like I'm riding on thin air
But it seems I'm getting nowhere / On the concept of the horse
Also, the following verse points to our reality being not real (it is cartoon, we are wearing cartoon jetskates made by a fictional cartoon company):
In a cartoon desert landscape / With a pair of ACME jetskates
And isn't it a conceptual hell when you realize that reality as you know it isn't real? (like, as 'tenwords' pointed out, plato's people in the cave did).
So I think he's saying something like 'we go through life thinking that our reality is real, our truths are true, our paths are determined by god and that we are all moving forward but we are all just riding the concept of a horse (ie. it's all in our minds and we aren't getting anywhere because of it).'
And then, even when you know there is no essential real or true, what else can you do but go on?
... 'But still I try' ...
I didn't pick up on this until I read all the other peoples good comments here, but I am now feeling like there is something of an anti-essentialist meaning here as well as the anti-determinism the others have noted (ie our lives are not pre-determined by god's plan). Something about how reality as we know it is shaped by us and our language (there isn't anything essentially 'horse' about a horse, it could just as easily be called a 'table' - but would it mean the same thing or not?) and it's hard to say if there is a reality sepparate from our perceptions of it. Or something like that. Here's why I'm thinking this way:
The person in the song is told that his fundamental truths are not true: "And I don't know where I stand / Not since someone informed me / That my house was built on sand". Then, when he looks closer at the reality around him, it all falls apart (the buildings, the house on sand) or it never actually existed (the horse, the earth).
The following lines have one thing in common - they all point to someone discovering that the things that they thought were essentialy real are not:
That my house was built on sand / And it's not the earth beneath me / It's just the concept of the land
And I'm standing on the corner / When the buildings they all fell
You know you can't ride the concept of the horse / But still I try
But there's something that unnerves me / Like I'm riding on thin air
But it seems I'm getting nowhere / On the concept of the horse
Also, the following verse points to our reality being not real (it is cartoon, we are wearing cartoon jetskates made by a fictional cartoon company):
In a cartoon desert landscape / With a pair of ACME jetskates
And isn't it a conceptual hell when you realize that reality as you know it isn't real? (like, as 'tenwords' pointed out, plato's people in the cave did).
So I think he's saying something like 'we go through life thinking that our reality is real, our truths are true, our paths are determined by god and that we are all moving forward but we are all just riding the concept of a horse (ie. it's all in our minds and we aren't getting anywhere because of it).'
And then, even when you know there is no essential real or true, what else can you do but go on? ... 'But still I try' ...