Is It Like Today?

Sheryl Crow has performed this, but it is originally done by World Party. Both versions are quite nice. :)

This song, to me, is about humanity over time. Over the centuries, the questions are still the same. Why are we here? What are we doing? What purpose do we have? How could it come to this?

It seems like there's something significant you might have missed. In the first couple verses, it's the people looking around them, asking "How could it come to this?", but in the last verse, with man on the moon, it's actually God which speaks the chorus. "I'm really worried about my creation." That makes the line, "You're really killing me, you know" all the more powerful. It's about how we have a tendency to think ourselves the center of the universe -- the most important players on the block. There's always something larger than us.

For me, it seems like it's about recognizing that humanity is NOT all there is. We look around

A four verse precis of the book, "A History Of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell

Is there anyone who knows what this song ('Is it like today' by World Party) is actually about and if it is a remake of an older song? I saw that there is a version by Sheryl Crow, but have no idea if she remade this or someone else's song.

meggybears has one level. the song is a bit deeper than that - it's about the cyclic destruction man brings to the planet. The questions do remain constant - even though man advances. "Is it like today? BANG!" (nuclear war or some cataclysmic event wipes out humanity's advancement) This is the theme of the whole album.

Though literally it can be interpreted two ways. pessimisticly - as Man never learns "is this as good as it's ever gonna get?" OR optimistically - through recreation / rebirth (the last stanza) Man will be given an infinite number of chances for redemption. Knowing Wallinger's views, this is not an optimistic song...but interpret what you like.

I agree it's about us figuring things out, and really matches what an earlier responder said about Karl's intentions when writing the song, but even moreso, I get the sense it's about us messing everything up. We've fouled up this gorgeous planet that we were lucky enough to "inherit," and now we want to go to the moon and try to make things right but we'll just mess that (and space) up too! Think of all the junk in space - satellites, etc. We can't keep ourselves from messing up a good, pure thing. We think we know and understand so much - well, we TRY to understand, and we often do get there (we know more about lots of things than in the days before science and before they could just sit and think) - but that understanding somehow doesn't stop us from fouling the water and the air and killing each other and never seeming to learn or get any better as a whole. I just love this song, and I know Karl Wallinger was very earth-concious, very concerned about the planet, so this interpretation is the one I've always had and continue to think fits the song.

[Edit: clarification after reading ILikeSin's comment]

A fun, musical journey through history!

Love this song. Usernick has it when he mentions "A History Of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell. Great melody and great lyrics. Speaking of lyrics...

First chorus is messed up, it uses "I" instead of "we". It should be:

He said How could it come to this? I'm really worried about living How could it come to this? Yeah, I really wanna know about this

Second verse is missing:

Is it like today? Uh, uh-uh

Then there came a day, moved Out cross the Mediterranean Came to rest on isles and the Greek young men And with their silver beards they laughed At the unknown of the universe They could just sit and guess God's name

And after the bang we start again at the beginning

It seems to me it's more about Man's desire to explore and to understand what is around him. First it was Babylon, then on Greece and Med, etc. The line that gets me to most is "the furrowed brow has never left his face" implying that there is never to answer to the question, only more questions. Musically I simply love the piano in this tune, even by itself its beautiful. Poetically it reminds me of the old World when Man had the time to sit around and ponder the great questions of the universe and indeed even God himself. I've always been a huge fan of Kurt Wallinger and I hope he remains around for awhile longer.