Near the start of the song, he refers to “picking for a coin” and that as he does so, “many other tiny worlds go singing past my hand.” He could be saying: “As I picked for a coin in my pocket, the tiny worlds of the people who held this coin before me went singing past my hand.”
The coin made him think of the tiny worlds of the other people who owned the coin. This makes sense because the next part of the song encourages us to awake to see the reality (that we are not dreaming - it really is this way) … that the lives of most humans are occupied by their efforts to “scuffle with the crowd to get their share” and “conquer little bits of time.”
The “tiny worlds” of the first section ties in with the “little bits of time” that people manage to conquer during their lives. The coin of the earlier verse ties in with the fact that people getting their share involves money.
But despite getting their share (their piece of the pie) and conquering little bits of time, they still “fall” and they end up on their death beds drawing “numbers in the air.” When you die, your money is worthless and doesn’t do anything: it’s like writing numbers in the air. People have spent their lives scuffling for their share, and when they die and leave their bodies, it’s worthless and does them no good. You can’t take your share with you: it’s just numbers in the air.
In the next verse, he continues with the air theme saying that he hears “voices in the air” coming from the trees and he contrasts their “sympathetic harmony,” with another allusion to materialism: “many shiny surfaces” that are “clinging.” This is along the lines of the classic saying “all that glitters is not gold.” Likewise, an occasional theme of spiritual people who are wary of materialism is to talk about the “shiny things” of the world of materialism trying to capture their attention.
Next he conveys that he’s not going to take the same path because he’s not going to plan his life out to make sure he gets his share, and he pointedly says that he won’t lose out by doing this.
Then he talks about a savior in the sky (in the air) who knows the way, but finds that most people don't want to know the way. Combined with the next lines about Joseph and Mary, this seems to be an allusion to Jesus and his core teachings that pursuing money is not the way, and that pursuing love, goodness and kindness are the way.
This is expressed in dozens of well-known ways from the “it’s harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” to the story of the good Samaritan in which most people walk past the injured man because they are too busy on their way to getting their share. Ditto the saying “You can’t serve both money and God” with God sometimes referred to as “love” and “mercy.”
One correction to the lyrics on this site is that Jackson clearly sings: "I say goodbye to Joseph and Maria. They think they see another sky.” ... not "They think I see another sky.” Jackson sometimes uses “sky” to refer to the great beyond … so perhaps he’s saying Joseph and Maria have departed in that direction.
In the last line, Jackson indicates that he’s not the aforementioned savior by stating that he’ll “never free” Joseph and Maria. Maybe Jackson was a bit worried people would think he was saying that he was the “disillusioned savior’ so he put in the last line to make that clear. I don't think Jackson was making a pro-Christianity statement with the song … because he wasn’t Christian. I do think he was giving an anti-materialism message and used the allusion to Jesus to back his message up.
And he “might” have consciously or unconsciously tapped into a couple of other aspects of Judeo-Christian spiritual themes given 16 of the 38 parables are about money, and many are widely known by most of society. There’s no way to tell, but some of his other songs on his earlier albums have similar allusions or themes from Judeo-Christian spirituality. On the “Late for the Sky” album, he literally mentions the Bible.
Interestingly, Jackson’s statement in “Colors of the Sun” of I’m not going to plan it out and I won’t lose because of it … is very similar to this: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” (Matthew 6:25-34)
I think Jackson probably didn’t tap into the Bible for that part of the song, but it is interesting that his thinking is so similar.
Near the start of the song, he refers to “picking for a coin” and that as he does so, “many other tiny worlds go singing past my hand.” He could be saying: “As I picked for a coin in my pocket, the tiny worlds of the people who held this coin before me went singing past my hand.”
The coin made him think of the tiny worlds of the other people who owned the coin. This makes sense because the next part of the song encourages us to awake to see the reality (that we are not dreaming - it really is this way) … that the lives of most humans are occupied by their efforts to “scuffle with the crowd to get their share” and “conquer little bits of time.”
The “tiny worlds” of the first section ties in with the “little bits of time” that people manage to conquer during their lives. The coin of the earlier verse ties in with the fact that people getting their share involves money.
But despite getting their share (their piece of the pie) and conquering little bits of time, they still “fall” and they end up on their death beds drawing “numbers in the air.” When you die, your money is worthless and doesn’t do anything: it’s like writing numbers in the air. People have spent their lives scuffling for their share, and when they die and leave their bodies, it’s worthless and does them no good. You can’t take your share with you: it’s just numbers in the air.
In the next verse, he continues with the air theme saying that he hears “voices in the air” coming from the trees and he contrasts their “sympathetic harmony,” with another allusion to materialism: “many shiny surfaces” that are “clinging.” This is along the lines of the classic saying “all that glitters is not gold.” Likewise, an occasional theme of spiritual people who are wary of materialism is to talk about the “shiny things” of the world of materialism trying to capture their attention.
Next he conveys that he’s not going to take the same path because he’s not going to plan his life out to make sure he gets his share, and he pointedly says that he won’t lose out by doing this.
Then he talks about a savior in the sky (in the air) who knows the way, but finds that most people don't want to know the way. Combined with the next lines about Joseph and Mary, this seems to be an allusion to Jesus and his core teachings that pursuing money is not the way, and that pursuing love, goodness and kindness are the way.
This is expressed in dozens of well-known ways from the “it’s harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” to the story of the good Samaritan in which most people walk past the injured man because they are too busy on their way to getting their share. Ditto the saying “You can’t serve both money and God” with God sometimes referred to as “love” and “mercy.”
One correction to the lyrics on this site is that Jackson clearly sings: "I say goodbye to Joseph and Maria. They think they see another sky.” ... not "They think I see another sky.” Jackson sometimes uses “sky” to refer to the great beyond … so perhaps he’s saying Joseph and Maria have departed in that direction.
In the last line, Jackson indicates that he’s not the aforementioned savior by stating that he’ll “never free” Joseph and Maria. Maybe Jackson was a bit worried people would think he was saying that he was the “disillusioned savior’ so he put in the last line to make that clear. I don't think Jackson was making a pro-Christianity statement with the song … because he wasn’t Christian. I do think he was giving an anti-materialism message and used the allusion to Jesus to back his message up.
And he “might” have consciously or unconsciously tapped into a couple of other aspects of Judeo-Christian spiritual themes given 16 of the 38 parables are about money, and many are widely known by most of society. There’s no way to tell, but some of his other songs on his earlier albums have similar allusions or themes from Judeo-Christian spirituality. On the “Late for the Sky” album, he literally mentions the Bible.
Interestingly, Jackson’s statement in “Colors of the Sun” of I’m not going to plan it out and I won’t lose because of it … is very similar to this: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” (Matthew 6:25-34)
I think Jackson probably didn’t tap into the Bible for that part of the song, but it is interesting that his thinking is so similar.