I thought about this song many times over the years and something just fell into place. Swans are among the largest flying birds, whereas hummingbirds are the smallest; that's not likely to be a coincidence.
I believe size is used as a metaphor for prosperity. The Civil War created winners and losers. Some ended the war with greater stature (swans), others with less (hummingbirds). The syntactic pattern may be borrowed from the game "Duck, Duck, Goose." Most people are identified as a duck. When someone is identified as a goose, they have to get up and pursue the person who labeled them that. Birds are used, arbitrarily, to classify each player, at the caprice of the player who is standing. It may be that Stipe saw the way the Civil War determined people's destinies as arbitrary in this way, identifying the winners as swans, and the losers as hummingbirds.
Maybe this is too obscure a chain of associations, but it fits the overall message as I'd posted here seven (wow, seven!) years ago.
@rikdad Because I'm such a geek, I always thought of the way birds, swans especially, are portrayed in myth and legend as the messengers from the Land of the Dead. My mind (which is just one big pool of free-association) also always wants to make a contrast between the "noisy cats" and the way the first letters of the birds' (natural prey of cats) names would spell, "ssh."
@rikdad Because I'm such a geek, I always thought of the way birds, swans especially, are portrayed in myth and legend as the messengers from the Land of the Dead. My mind (which is just one big pool of free-association) also always wants to make a contrast between the "noisy cats" and the way the first letters of the birds' (natural prey of cats) names would spell, "ssh."
I thought about this song many times over the years and something just fell into place. Swans are among the largest flying birds, whereas hummingbirds are the smallest; that's not likely to be a coincidence.
I believe size is used as a metaphor for prosperity. The Civil War created winners and losers. Some ended the war with greater stature (swans), others with less (hummingbirds). The syntactic pattern may be borrowed from the game "Duck, Duck, Goose." Most people are identified as a duck. When someone is identified as a goose, they have to get up and pursue the person who labeled them that. Birds are used, arbitrarily, to classify each player, at the caprice of the player who is standing. It may be that Stipe saw the way the Civil War determined people's destinies as arbitrary in this way, identifying the winners as swans, and the losers as hummingbirds.
Maybe this is too obscure a chain of associations, but it fits the overall message as I'd posted here seven (wow, seven!) years ago.
@rikdad Because I'm such a geek, I always thought of the way birds, swans especially, are portrayed in myth and legend as the messengers from the Land of the Dead. My mind (which is just one big pool of free-association) also always wants to make a contrast between the "noisy cats" and the way the first letters of the birds' (natural prey of cats) names would spell, "ssh."
@rikdad Because I'm such a geek, I always thought of the way birds, swans especially, are portrayed in myth and legend as the messengers from the Land of the Dead. My mind (which is just one big pool of free-association) also always wants to make a contrast between the "noisy cats" and the way the first letters of the birds' (natural prey of cats) names would spell, "ssh."