I also like this song very much, both music and lyrics.
What Johnny describes is something existential, that goes very deep and affects everyone: "We´re all digging...". And this "digging", "tunnel-making" is obviously something negative and fruitless. It leads away from the daylight, away from company and communion with others. While digging you´re alone only carrying out your digging ambitions. It seems to be a kind of fate or doom, nobody can escape from it. All human beings are "jailbirds", there´s a kind of solidarity in "tunnel-digging". "the ornamental tree" maybe symbolizes deliverance, but the way to this tree, whatever it represents, still is unknown.
Interesting: in the first stanza it can really say "I was that far from the tree" and "I wasn´t that far from the tree", both make sense. "Far from the tree" may be already referring to the saving "ornamental tree", but "not far from the tree" can also by an expression for "being suicidal", which was my first intuitional interpretation.
But one thing I really don´t grasp: why does it mean "far too slow". I thought the tunnel-digging itself was the problem, not the slowness. If someone has an idea, I´d be glad to share it.
Terri1909 you´re right, the lyrics of this song are very rich and full of associations.
I also like this song very much, both music and lyrics.
What Johnny describes is something existential, that goes very deep and affects everyone: "We´re all digging...". And this "digging", "tunnel-making" is obviously something negative and fruitless. It leads away from the daylight, away from company and communion with others. While digging you´re alone only carrying out your digging ambitions. It seems to be a kind of fate or doom, nobody can escape from it. All human beings are "jailbirds", there´s a kind of solidarity in "tunnel-digging". "the ornamental tree" maybe symbolizes deliverance, but the way to this tree, whatever it represents, still is unknown.
Interesting: in the first stanza it can really say "I was that far from the tree" and "I wasn´t that far from the tree", both make sense. "Far from the tree" may be already referring to the saving "ornamental tree", but "not far from the tree" can also by an expression for "being suicidal", which was my first intuitional interpretation.
But one thing I really don´t grasp: why does it mean "far too slow". I thought the tunnel-digging itself was the problem, not the slowness. If someone has an idea, I´d be glad to share it.
Terri1909 you´re right, the lyrics of this song are very rich and full of associations.