Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
(Yes, and disciplinary remains mercifully)
(Yes, and um, I'm with you Derek, this star nonsense)
(Yes, yes)
(Now, which is it?)
(I am sure of it)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
(Yes, and um, I'm with you Derek, this star nonsense)
(Yes, yes)
(Now, which is it?)
(I am sure of it)
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae, edited by kehlankr, galaxiaad, bwheeler78, sharkycharming, JohnEightThirtyTwo, GrimTone, robodok, dimaqq, afloyd674, nasses321
Wish You Were Here Lyrics as written by Roger Waters David Gilmour
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Songtrust Ave
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Mountain Song
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Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
No Surprises
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
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“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
For me this song is (like much Floyd) about missed opportunities. Do you really think that right now you can tell the difference between something that will be good in the long run and something short term? Do you really think that you can tell what the difference is between this job and that one? Do you think that you really know if this girl will be better in 5 years, or that one.
Can you tell Heaven from Hell? Can you tell what will work out well from a nightmare? Blue skies from pain? Something "good" from something "bad"
And repeat (in a good way, I love the song)
What it says to me is that you can never tell, at least about your own life (your too close), what is good and what is bad. Look at all of history, the life story of every great artist, the history of every war. Things that seem great one second are just pain the next, and possibly more importantly, things that seem great now can be the undoing of everything.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and often the road to enlightenment is paved with painful mistakes and lessons.
The song grinds this message home. Then expresses loss in the titular line.
That loss seems to be for someone, but is equally for all the missed opportunities and chances. It is the loss of all the lives that could have been. All the dreams left unfulfilled. The chances not taken. Because we could not tell heaven from hell, blue skies from pain. Because we could not see beyond the end of our (temporal) noses.
The final segment makes it all the more personal. A relationship that is not working. Two people, neither grasping their dreams, both plodding along in the same routines. Day after day, in the same old way, they bang their heads against the same barriers, never breaking through. Never quite telling that today's blue skies are eternities' pain. Never quite getting to the point where they have to break free or break down. Just bumping of the bowl year after year, running over the same ground.
So for me this is a song about the nature of humanity and it's limited capability to see it's own position in the world, or individually in their own life. It is about the lack of vision of most of man, the limited horizons and the pain that that causes.
And I know that I suffer from all those flaws, and that I am trapped in that position, and that is why I had to listen to this song tonight when I came home.
Many other Floyd songs express similar feelings to me, particularly Time which puts a ticking clock next to the weighing scales of wish you were here. Balance each decision, but don't run out of time.
I think I have failed on both counts. Ho humm, welcome to the machine.
Dude.... fuckin' aye, you just nailed the song. Hope things turn out better for you man.<br /> <br /> Peace.
Wow! Perhaps the most eloquently delivered analysis I've ever read. Well done, Sir.
Perfect.
Jarak, I joined this site so I could tell you how profound your interpretation is. I hope someday you come back to this thread and see what your words have meant. I knew, of course, that the song was about Roger's missing Syd, and I really liked the instrumental introduction. Dave was amazing playing it at Live8. But it never dawned on me that I was the "you" the song was referring to. Now it makes so much sense.
Great... just great
Wow, I just got an e-mail letting me know that someone had commented on my post. A post that I had no recollection of making on a site that if you had asked me yesterday I would have said I have never heard of. Having come here and read the post from me in the past, I have to say I like my style and still agree with what I said. I am just struggling with the strange situation of reading your own words as if for the first time.<br /> <br /> Thanks to all those who have commented, I am sure that there are times over the past 5 years (!) that I could have done with seeing those. <br /> <br /> As it stands at the moment I have put down my little black book, but still have a bag with a toothbrush and a comb in.
@Jarak This is the best explanation of the song, I feel my life as a set of missed opportunities,good or bad, and also you noticed a big truth..how can you know what to decide in certain situations and wonder if it is the right,correct decision. Like you, Time raises the same feelings in me...I'm thinking so much of this song lately...Thanx
@Jarak just thought I would ask if you still read the comments, and also if you found your blue skies, or if you only see the cold steel rail? God gave us dreams, so that we would want to make them a reality. The only thing most people never realize is that we can't fulfill those dreams without God's help. Unless we take the opposite path to get there, and then we end up empty and life is a shell with no substance filling us. <br />
@Jarak Yes, Loving someone that is out of reach. The dreams that will never be
@Jarak wow, in 2021 I read this and looked to my own life while eating cup noodles and hearing my son playing video game, while the baby is upstairs with my wife, that makes me think the good and bad my choices gave me, and how limited is my vision to try to see something about my life even in near future, and all options I put away. You said is so true. Peace.
@Jarak It's December 2023 and I signed up to thank you for this. And I might have something for you. The courage to see... is the courage to be.