I first listened to this song when I was 14 years old, and ever since, it has stuck with me. Now I’m in my 20s and my interpretation of the song is that it is an anthem about learning to get by the hardships of life and the consequent corruption of the soul because of the evil in the world. \n\nIt’s about the need to Get By and survive in a difficult existence, where our fears and enemies are very real. Where we must fight for ourselves. \n\nThe world that the narrator tells us about, strongly emphasizes the need he has had throughout his life to be independent and oriented to think and act for himself “walk the hills, I had to climb with these legs of my own- My hard days and dark nights put my head in the zone” also highlighting that life has made him hard, the difficulties mutated him into and independent and flawed man.\n\n His upbringing has made him live a life that is far from what he dreamed of. America is portrayed as greedy and grey. And so has become his soul.\n\nIn a brief moment he refers to a flashback with his mother (probably when he was a child) “I flash back to a 70\'s song in a Volare with mom\nPicture the future seeing everything gone\nMy wife is asking me, "Is anything wrong?"\nI tell her, "Erica, everything is. You better be strong."“ he reminisces of an innocent time in his life, which is now long gone, erased by the relentlessness of time.\n\n Now he is married, and during his flashback, his wife asks him if everything is fine. He replies that things are not. It’s no longer the 1970s and the innocent and happy time spent with his mother is long gone. Soon it will all be gone. This ice cold world has made his vicious and selfish.\n\nThe narrator also stresses that he has had many examples in life, and that there “were many before me who molded me and showed me the way\nBut I\'m my own man, there\'s nobody that told me to say what I say” meaning he knows it’s himself for himself and he is the owner of his own life and own story.\n\nSo how then will a man succeed in a corrupt and evil world like this? How will he survive all the forces that want to destroy him and make him cease to exist? How will he get by? \n\nHis answer:\n“Hate will fuel your rage\nDrugs will get you high\nMoney buys respect\nLove will get you by”\n\nHate for the things that want to destroy you will motivate you to act. Drugs (I believe that this isn’t just about stimulants- to me it’s used more in a figurative sense, as in the distractions and vices of your life) will make you high. Money (becoming a wealthy individual will make you respected) and love (and sex possibly is meant here) will help you make sense of it all. This is far from ideal, probably not what he envisioned for himself as a child,, but this is how he has made it. \n\nThe man in this story has survived. But his innocence is dead. He feels the devil in his eyes. But he Gets By.
I first listened to this song when I was 14 years old, and ever since, it has stuck with me. Now I’m in my 20s and my interpretation of the song is that it is an anthem about learning to get by the hardships of life and the consequent corruption of the soul because of the evil in the world. \n\nIt’s about the need to Get By and survive in a difficult existence, where our fears and enemies are very real. Where we must fight for ourselves. \n\nThe world that the narrator tells us about, strongly emphasizes the need he has had throughout his life to be independent and oriented to think and act for himself “walk the hills, I had to climb with these legs of my own- My hard days and dark nights put my head in the zone” also highlighting that life has made him hard, the difficulties mutated him into and independent and flawed man.\n\n His upbringing has made him live a life that is far from what he dreamed of. America is portrayed as greedy and grey. And so has become his soul.\n\nIn a brief moment he refers to a flashback with his mother (probably when he was a child) “I flash back to a 70\'s song in a Volare with mom\nPicture the future seeing everything gone\nMy wife is asking me, "Is anything wrong?"\nI tell her, "Erica, everything is. You better be strong."“ he reminisces of an innocent time in his life, which is now long gone, erased by the relentlessness of time.\n\n Now he is married, and during his flashback, his wife asks him if everything is fine. He replies that things are not. It’s no longer the 1970s and the innocent and happy time spent with his mother is long gone. Soon it will all be gone. This ice cold world has made his vicious and selfish.\n\nThe narrator also stresses that he has had many examples in life, and that there “were many before me who molded me and showed me the way\nBut I\'m my own man, there\'s nobody that told me to say what I say” meaning he knows it’s himself for himself and he is the owner of his own life and own story.\n\nSo how then will a man succeed in a corrupt and evil world like this? How will he survive all the forces that want to destroy him and make him cease to exist? How will he get by? \n\nHis answer:\n“Hate will fuel your rage\nDrugs will get you high\nMoney buys respect\nLove will get you by”\n\nHate for the things that want to destroy you will motivate you to act. Drugs (I believe that this isn’t just about stimulants- to me it’s used more in a figurative sense, as in the distractions and vices of your life) will make you high. Money (becoming a wealthy individual will make you respected) and love (and sex possibly is meant here) will help you make sense of it all. This is far from ideal, probably not what he envisioned for himself as a child,, but this is how he has made it. \n\nThe man in this story has survived. But his innocence is dead. He feels the devil in his eyes. But he Gets By.