I believe this song was written about the balance between pride and humility, to explain this I am going to try and portray what I'm saying in short verse interpretations. This is not to say it can't be about religion or surfing or anything really. There is pride & humility in just about every task, action, job, hobby, belief, etc, so yah it could be about any of those also,
Pride teaches us humility when it let's us down and this is how,
Your head represent your pride, if you have ever been told you have a big head, or don't let it go to your head, it's referring to the arogance and pride one has consuming their thoughts and getting in the way of their focus on what got them there.
Your heart represents humility, it's an old word and it has many meanings and interpretation also, it's lowliness of mind, like being the son of god and washing a begger's feet. It's your heart that tells you to do the right thing or has empathy, it's heart that makes you fall in love in the first place. Your pride follows, like a shadow it is always chasing your heart/humility around. When it finally does catch up to you, it is by defeating you enough to have humility again in the process what you learned to love was your shadow chasing you. You didn't know this while it was happening but now that you have humility again the blurry & out of focus reflection (pride) let's you see everything that led to your defeat, ie. hindsight is 20/20, a warning nobody heard.
better hope you are not alone, can refer to physical pride and vanity, when one believes they are better looking than someone and not worth sharing their attention with them. If you have to much pride you become arrogant, if you feel like you are better than someone else because of your status or anything you have pride, while you have this pride you burn a lot of bridges, everyone that you shunned remembers how you treated them, and when you are defeated is when you are going to feel most alone, not having the same luxuries you won't be granted the same attention or privilege.
reverb is just a room, if you are an arrogant movie star or anyone for that matter that suddenly landed on an island with people that didn't know them they would lose their status. In the same way who and what we surround ourselves with effect how fast we are defeated by pride or how fast it chases us around. Pride can destroy relationships, when someone can't admit they are wrong and refuse to understand the other person, it's at a standstill and cannot grow. Our pride is not being fed anymore and goes back on the move and often our heart chases it after we have already destroyed what we already fell in love with and gave our heart too..
Yo don't always have to do this, sometimes you can practice humility and have heart, and serve one another.
Pride = a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
Humility = a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.
I believe this song was written about the balance between pride and humility, to explain this I am going to try and portray what I'm saying in short verse interpretations. This is not to say it can't be about religion or surfing or anything really. There is pride & humility in just about every task, action, job, hobby, belief, etc, so yah it could be about any of those also,
Pride teaches us humility when it let's us down and this is how,
Shadow and reflection both represent pride
There are many types of pride so for this I'm going to refer to the 8 types of pride described in this blog, http://herculodge.typepad.com/herculodge/2011/07/the-8-types-of-pride.html
Your head represent your pride, if you have ever been told you have a big head, or don't let it go to your head, it's referring to the arogance and pride one has consuming their thoughts and getting in the way of their focus on what got them there.
Your heart represents humility, it's an old word and it has many meanings and interpretation also, it's lowliness of mind, like being the son of god and washing a begger's feet. It's your heart that tells you to do the right thing or has empathy, it's heart that makes you fall in love in the first place. Your pride follows, like a shadow it is always chasing your heart/humility around. When it finally does catch up to you, it is by defeating you enough to have humility again in the process what you learned to love was your shadow chasing you. You didn't know this while it was happening but now that you have humility again the blurry & out of focus reflection (pride) let's you see everything that led to your defeat, ie. hindsight is 20/20, a warning nobody heard.
better hope you are not alone, can refer to physical pride and vanity, when one believes they are better looking than someone and not worth sharing their attention with them. If you have to much pride you become arrogant, if you feel like you are better than someone else because of your status or anything you have pride, while you have this pride you burn a lot of bridges, everyone that you shunned remembers how you treated them, and when you are defeated is when you are going to feel most alone, not having the same luxuries you won't be granted the same attention or privilege.
reverb is just a room, if you are an arrogant movie star or anyone for that matter that suddenly landed on an island with people that didn't know them they would lose their status. In the same way who and what we surround ourselves with effect how fast we are defeated by pride or how fast it chases us around. Pride can destroy relationships, when someone can't admit they are wrong and refuse to understand the other person, it's at a standstill and cannot grow. Our pride is not being fed anymore and goes back on the move and often our heart chases it after we have already destroyed what we already fell in love with and gave our heart too..
Yo don't always have to do this, sometimes you can practice humility and have heart, and serve one another.
Pride = a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
Humility = a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.