A beautiful, sad and (in my opinion) vastly underrated song in the MM catalog.
This is definitely not one of Issac Brock's more difficult to decifer lyrical endeavors but that's okay.
I always figured the 'ghosts' was the spirit of the Native American people who inhabited those lands and lived in harmony with nature before those lands were seized and deemed National Parks. One could argue that since this song seems to be an indictment of all of mankind and its cruel impact on the rest of the planet, that this interpreteation is unlikely. However, just a few songs later on the album, Brock reminds us that God is an Indian (you know the rest). Native Americans are given a pass here. Their connection to the natural world was more symbiotic and in the end, they suffered greatly, as the evironment suffers greatly. Both victims of the same "serial killer", who by the way, are almost ALWAYS white men!
The other heartbreaking aspect of this song touched on by the other commenters here speaks to the collective hypocrisy of protected lands. Yes, they're beautiful. Yes, we love them all. Yet we still drill for gas and oil in many of them. We hold them up on a pedistal to promote our dedication and responsibility as conservationists while tearing down tree after tree elsewhere. Even those of us who are aware of this destruction and who committed to lowering our carbon footprint have our hipocrisy. We can always change the channel when the truth hits too hard.
A beautiful, sad and (in my opinion) vastly underrated song in the MM catalog. This is definitely not one of Issac Brock's more difficult to decifer lyrical endeavors but that's okay.
I always figured the 'ghosts' was the spirit of the Native American people who inhabited those lands and lived in harmony with nature before those lands were seized and deemed National Parks. One could argue that since this song seems to be an indictment of all of mankind and its cruel impact on the rest of the planet, that this interpreteation is unlikely. However, just a few songs later on the album, Brock reminds us that God is an Indian (you know the rest). Native Americans are given a pass here. Their connection to the natural world was more symbiotic and in the end, they suffered greatly, as the evironment suffers greatly. Both victims of the same "serial killer", who by the way, are almost ALWAYS white men!
The other heartbreaking aspect of this song touched on by the other commenters here speaks to the collective hypocrisy of protected lands. Yes, they're beautiful. Yes, we love them all. Yet we still drill for gas and oil in many of them. We hold them up on a pedistal to promote our dedication and responsibility as conservationists while tearing down tree after tree elsewhere. Even those of us who are aware of this destruction and who committed to lowering our carbon footprint have our hipocrisy. We can always change the channel when the truth hits too hard.