The song, the way I hear it, is in honor of the fall of communism in the Soviet Union. There are feelings of loss (all the time they spent controlled), sadness, anger, but ultimately hope.
"That is it it's split, it won't recover." Communism is dead.
"Just frame the halves and call them brothers." This country is broken, divided between those invested in the old institutions and those desperate for something new. Communism wreaked havoc on the country... but with all that brokenness, we must go on and see our country as a whole.
"Find your fathers and your mothers, if you remember, who they are." Ideology tore at he basic fabric of what it means to be human. It confused people so horribly, overtaking basic human relationships as the foundation orienting oneself in the world. It's time to recalibrate ourselves and get back in tune with our core humanity.
"Over and over, they called us their friends, can't they find something else to pretend." In the Soviet Union everyone was a "comrade", a friend. How horrible to abuse such a meaningful relationship. Ideology is a fantasy; it's pretend. Couldn't the fantasy at least have been about something good, like a world in which, "nobody wins and we are safe in the end."
"In the darkness the film machine's spinning
So let's leave it on
We'll be out in the street
before anyone knows that we're gone"
This is a memory back to the period just prior to the end of Communism. The film machine represents the ideology of the state and those that taught and disseminated that ideology. But in the end, the teachers were all on autopilot, themselves victims. They had no conviction. Students could "check out" and begin to live a true life of the mind and explore real ideas. As the structures began to fall apart kids began to find freedom, even while the film machine (the apparatuses of the State) were still running.
"And chip at the bricks and fill up your pockets
With the pieces of the wall that you stole." The people played a real part in bringing about the end of Communism. The wall represents the opposite of thinking. The more that you think, you can use those thoughts to think some more and the wall begins to tumble down.
"The hunt is on", the exciting chaos post liberation. "Everyone wants a shot," a chance to succeed, to think, to live. But it is also scary and dangerous, like what gun shots can do, but everyone excepted the danger and "nobody wants it (freedom) to stop."
The song, the way I hear it, is in honor of the fall of communism in the Soviet Union. There are feelings of loss (all the time they spent controlled), sadness, anger, but ultimately hope.
"That is it it's split, it won't recover." Communism is dead. "Just frame the halves and call them brothers." This country is broken, divided between those invested in the old institutions and those desperate for something new. Communism wreaked havoc on the country... but with all that brokenness, we must go on and see our country as a whole. "Find your fathers and your mothers, if you remember, who they are." Ideology tore at he basic fabric of what it means to be human. It confused people so horribly, overtaking basic human relationships as the foundation orienting oneself in the world. It's time to recalibrate ourselves and get back in tune with our core humanity.
"Over and over, they called us their friends, can't they find something else to pretend." In the Soviet Union everyone was a "comrade", a friend. How horrible to abuse such a meaningful relationship. Ideology is a fantasy; it's pretend. Couldn't the fantasy at least have been about something good, like a world in which, "nobody wins and we are safe in the end." "In the darkness the film machine's spinning So let's leave it on We'll be out in the street before anyone knows that we're gone" This is a memory back to the period just prior to the end of Communism. The film machine represents the ideology of the state and those that taught and disseminated that ideology. But in the end, the teachers were all on autopilot, themselves victims. They had no conviction. Students could "check out" and begin to live a true life of the mind and explore real ideas. As the structures began to fall apart kids began to find freedom, even while the film machine (the apparatuses of the State) were still running.
"And chip at the bricks and fill up your pockets With the pieces of the wall that you stole." The people played a real part in bringing about the end of Communism. The wall represents the opposite of thinking. The more that you think, you can use those thoughts to think some more and the wall begins to tumble down.
"The hunt is on", the exciting chaos post liberation. "Everyone wants a shot," a chance to succeed, to think, to live. But it is also scary and dangerous, like what gun shots can do, but everyone excepted the danger and "nobody wants it (freedom) to stop."
I meant, everyone accepted the danger.
I meant, everyone accepted the danger.