The song opens with Eno piloting some sort of metal craft (most likely a car) through the countryside as night approaches. The sense of isolation is palpable. The metal seems to isolate him from his environment or his own life -- the days themselves have become "metal," and the "ways" of his existence are also "metal."
Man contructed machines of metal, and the metal became his master, it seems. Technology and the wonders of science lead to the restriction of our imagination -- "hard facts" and pre-mapped pathways predetermine humanity's responses as processes and minds become streamlined to fit the demands of a fast-paced and relentless culture.
Eno prophesies a future where we return "back to silence" from our current "metal" state. Inaction, being (rather than becoming), and calm acceptance without analysis may once again hold sway. Images of twilight (purple sky) and transition (day being left behind, approaching night) abound in the song, representing the endless cycles of life and death that humanity is a part of (but pretends to have escaped via his transient "metal ways").
The last original couplet is important -- everyone is talking in our "blue future" (the alienated present), but no one is receiving; the radio waves echo into nothing because everyone is too busy creating, generating, ejaculating, to stop and listen, receive, accept, take in, be passive, be responsive, or just be (and yes, I am aware of the masculine/feminine connotations of the two opposites; this duality is key throughout the album, I think).
As the first song on "Before and After Science," this song establishes the alienated present -- the current era of Science. Eno prefers imagination and the unplanned, uncontrolled creative impulse -- he knows that everything we observe and think is just another wave an endless ocean.
The song opens with Eno piloting some sort of metal craft (most likely a car) through the countryside as night approaches. The sense of isolation is palpable. The metal seems to isolate him from his environment or his own life -- the days themselves have become "metal," and the "ways" of his existence are also "metal."
Man contructed machines of metal, and the metal became his master, it seems. Technology and the wonders of science lead to the restriction of our imagination -- "hard facts" and pre-mapped pathways predetermine humanity's responses as processes and minds become streamlined to fit the demands of a fast-paced and relentless culture.
Eno prophesies a future where we return "back to silence" from our current "metal" state. Inaction, being (rather than becoming), and calm acceptance without analysis may once again hold sway. Images of twilight (purple sky) and transition (day being left behind, approaching night) abound in the song, representing the endless cycles of life and death that humanity is a part of (but pretends to have escaped via his transient "metal ways").
The last original couplet is important -- everyone is talking in our "blue future" (the alienated present), but no one is receiving; the radio waves echo into nothing because everyone is too busy creating, generating, ejaculating, to stop and listen, receive, accept, take in, be passive, be responsive, or just be (and yes, I am aware of the masculine/feminine connotations of the two opposites; this duality is key throughout the album, I think).
As the first song on "Before and After Science," this song establishes the alienated present -- the current era of Science. Eno prefers imagination and the unplanned, uncontrolled creative impulse -- he knows that everything we observe and think is just another wave an endless ocean.