This song, which reinforces its theme of temporal confusion and ecological disaster with out-of-phase, off-time music, has always seemed to me to be about a local god or shaman worshipped by a rain forest tribe. He fails to predict that "the seasons" would change "too soon," and his people are either displaced or destroyed by a flood -- a freak occurrence, perhaps, or a sign of natural or man-made climate change. It is quite unlike anything one would hear on a major pop record these days... but then there was little like it in the 80's, either. Another innovative and overlooked masterpiece by one of the most innovative artists of the time.
This song, which reinforces its theme of temporal confusion and ecological disaster with out-of-phase, off-time music, has always seemed to me to be about a local god or shaman worshipped by a rain forest tribe. He fails to predict that "the seasons" would change "too soon," and his people are either displaced or destroyed by a flood -- a freak occurrence, perhaps, or a sign of natural or man-made climate change. It is quite unlike anything one would hear on a major pop record these days... but then there was little like it in the 80's, either. Another innovative and overlooked masterpiece by one of the most innovative artists of the time.