Surprisingly I'm getting a very different interpretation from this song. The general theme, to me, is "we need to appreciate life more." Ever hear the adages "Life is wasted on the living" and "you never know what you have until you lose it"? These two statements encompass the spirit of this song, IMHO.
The lyrics make this clear by opening up through flippant disdain towards the concept of suicide. You want to end your life? Go ahead. We're insured. You wish you were dead? That's ok.
The chorus then gets to the heart of the matter: that life is not appreciated by the living, that we're getting away with the very concept of being alive, and that it's messed up because we don't deserve it.
To exemplify this, the lyrics then go on to tell a story about Daniel and Grace, the first willing to sacrifice his life for the second, who is in danger of drowning. Daniel is confident (deep inside his temple, he knows how to surf her), but doesn't make it.
Drinking like Richard Burton and dancing like John Travolta are metaphors for the act of drowning: the water going into the lungs, the movements of the body as it goes into desperate automated spasms of survival. Both Daniel and Grace die, and in a final recognition of the nobility of sacrifice and the unfairness of accidental death, the lyrics grant the subjects a happy ending: now they live like dolphins.
This story provides the contrast that matters. How can there be people who don't appreciate life and contemplate suicide? How can people worthy of life end up unwillingly leaving it? The living are getting away with living, and it's messed up that we have no appreciation for it.
Surprisingly I'm getting a very different interpretation from this song. The general theme, to me, is "we need to appreciate life more." Ever hear the adages "Life is wasted on the living" and "you never know what you have until you lose it"? These two statements encompass the spirit of this song, IMHO.
The lyrics make this clear by opening up through flippant disdain towards the concept of suicide. You want to end your life? Go ahead. We're insured. You wish you were dead? That's ok.
The chorus then gets to the heart of the matter: that life is not appreciated by the living, that we're getting away with the very concept of being alive, and that it's messed up because we don't deserve it.
To exemplify this, the lyrics then go on to tell a story about Daniel and Grace, the first willing to sacrifice his life for the second, who is in danger of drowning. Daniel is confident (deep inside his temple, he knows how to surf her), but doesn't make it.
Drinking like Richard Burton and dancing like John Travolta are metaphors for the act of drowning: the water going into the lungs, the movements of the body as it goes into desperate automated spasms of survival. Both Daniel and Grace die, and in a final recognition of the nobility of sacrifice and the unfairness of accidental death, the lyrics grant the subjects a happy ending: now they live like dolphins.
This story provides the contrast that matters. How can there be people who don't appreciate life and contemplate suicide? How can people worthy of life end up unwillingly leaving it? The living are getting away with living, and it's messed up that we have no appreciation for it.