Interesting to read others (including the music critics referenced on Wikipedia) finding the song very upbeat. Until now I never would’ve thought to describe it that way—to me it’s always sounded sad, even without the lyrics. But after reading this I can see why people hear it that way. It’s also interesting that since I first heard the song about 10 years ago, I’ve had a totally different interpretation of what it was about. For me, the song wasn’t about a romantic relationship that’s fraying (though now I see that interpretation makes total sense!) For me the song was about being single and romantically/sexually frustrated. I took the “we” to be more general: “Whenever we hold each other” meaning “whenever people hold each other.” To me the phrase “near wild heaven” described the feeling of being constantly surrounded by other people and sensing the possibility of emotional and physical connection with them, but without ever being able to actually make that happen. “Living inside” referred both to the potential wild heaven inside each person, so close and yet so far, and also to the fact that the singer feels isolated and probably spends most of their time indoors. I now suspect my interpretation might say more about where I was mentally 10 years ago than about the song’s intended meaning XD
Interesting to read others (including the music critics referenced on Wikipedia) finding the song very upbeat. Until now I never would’ve thought to describe it that way—to me it’s always sounded sad, even without the lyrics. But after reading this I can see why people hear it that way. It’s also interesting that since I first heard the song about 10 years ago, I’ve had a totally different interpretation of what it was about. For me, the song wasn’t about a romantic relationship that’s fraying (though now I see that interpretation makes total sense!) For me the song was about being single and romantically/sexually frustrated. I took the “we” to be more general: “Whenever we hold each other” meaning “whenever people hold each other.” To me the phrase “near wild heaven” described the feeling of being constantly surrounded by other people and sensing the possibility of emotional and physical connection with them, but without ever being able to actually make that happen. “Living inside” referred both to the potential wild heaven inside each person, so close and yet so far, and also to the fact that the singer feels isolated and probably spends most of their time indoors. I now suspect my interpretation might say more about where I was mentally 10 years ago than about the song’s intended meaning XD
@sebastuff Thanks for that. You’ve described exactly where I’ve been living for the last 10 years, since the divorce of my 2nd wife. Time to move on.
@sebastuff Thanks for that. You’ve described exactly where I’ve been living for the last 10 years, since the divorce of my 2nd wife. Time to move on.