This is when Bruce began writing about adult worries; no longer young people's worries. The world awaits us all. The world takes it's toll. But, the answer here lies in the first stanza: "I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got" (which found it's way into Badlands, a song with the same theme as Iceman), and the final stanza: "Better than the waiting, baby, better off is the search".
When a person gets robbed of his/her dignity, there's nothing more that can be taken away. It doesn't take nerve or bravery to fight back and carve out your own humble existence in this world. It's basic survival. It's human nature to fight for survival when all is lost.
Some are more vulnerable, have less resilience, and are not cut out for the hardness of this world. The writer saw what it did for his wife/girlfriend: "My baby was a lover and the world just blew her away".
The writer isn't as soft as his girl. He's looking life straight in the eye and telling it that he was "born dead" and there's nothing more that can be taken away from him that already hasn't.
In the end, he reminds himself and us, it is better to search and strive for everything attained in this world than it is for it to be handed to you. And if you lose, you lose fighting for it. It's much better to lose fighting than it is to win without having earned it.
This theme is imbedded in most of Bruce's lyrics up through the recording of "Trouble In Paradise" which was the first song he recorded after he disassembled the band (the first was actually Viva Las Vegas, but that was a cover song).
This is when Bruce began writing about adult worries; no longer young people's worries. The world awaits us all. The world takes it's toll. But, the answer here lies in the first stanza: "I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got" (which found it's way into Badlands, a song with the same theme as Iceman), and the final stanza: "Better than the waiting, baby, better off is the search".
When a person gets robbed of his/her dignity, there's nothing more that can be taken away. It doesn't take nerve or bravery to fight back and carve out your own humble existence in this world. It's basic survival. It's human nature to fight for survival when all is lost.
Some are more vulnerable, have less resilience, and are not cut out for the hardness of this world. The writer saw what it did for his wife/girlfriend: "My baby was a lover and the world just blew her away".
The writer isn't as soft as his girl. He's looking life straight in the eye and telling it that he was "born dead" and there's nothing more that can be taken away from him that already hasn't.
In the end, he reminds himself and us, it is better to search and strive for everything attained in this world than it is for it to be handed to you. And if you lose, you lose fighting for it. It's much better to lose fighting than it is to win without having earned it.
This theme is imbedded in most of Bruce's lyrics up through the recording of "Trouble In Paradise" which was the first song he recorded after he disassembled the band (the first was actually Viva Las Vegas, but that was a cover song).