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This song is.... awesome. At first, before I knew the lyrics, I thought this was simply a beautiful lullaby. Now, after listening to it many times, I have a different interpretation. I'm wondering what you think. so here we go...
POP QUIZ, kids.
1. For you, is this song mostly about:
A: Broken, lost, personal dreams
B: The disillusionment of America
C: A relationship
D: None of the above
E: Who cares, just shut up, and let me get on with posting MY song with feeling.
*Extra credit for explaining your answer*
Hint: Here are the lyrics~
I was a quick wet boy
Diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes
Wide on my plastic toys
And when the cops closed the fair
I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map
And called for you everywhere
Have I found you?
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big pill looming
Now I'm a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream
Have I found you?
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding
Or lost you?
American mouth
Big pill stuck going down
1 giant leap - the way you dream / god/unity and The Fifth Element - The Diva Dance Opera
A moment for Ms. Peanut to tell her what I think! * smile *
The loss of innocence... transitioning from childhood to teenage idealism and passion... to the gradual submitting to societal pressures and need to take one's place in participation in what is considered maturity of those expectations regardless of whether those ideals still reflect the revelations experienced through the time of life where feelings were the center and not consumerism/materialism that now sustains the appearance of the eagle's flight. It is ideals that sustain the bird and give it flight... not a consumer's mouth, though that IS the temptation, seduction that disguises itself as flight.
The dissolution of ideals for transitory whims that materialism dresses itself in. This becomes the marketplace of that American dream. A house becomes the definition and not the March for Peace, etc. Can also be a metaphor for love and its stages of growth... from idealistic passion to the maturity and broadness of parental heart... the death of individual ignorance of what sacrifice means for communal consciousness, whether it manifests itself as being parents or not... belonging to a broader group of human experiences, becoming aware of other states of feelings that might branch out from family, to society, then nation and finally the world.
And now... what do you think? Not in response to what I have said but your original thinking is what I'm interested in...
-----------------
crowd tense... bodies lean forward... the atmosphere thick! ... she waits... as starlight floods the stage from an ancient time, in an alien world under an alien moon... cue given! she changes before us... skin.. face... a birdlike grace enters her hands... chin lifts as her heart ascends! she sweetly sings...
"The sweet sound of his voice struck me! Oh that voice... Has entered my heart! Edgardo I am given back to you. Edgardo! Oh, Edgardo!"
1 giant leap - the way you dream / god/unity (michael stipe, tim booth, asha bhosle)
"I have escaped from your enemies... A chill creeps into my breast. Every fiber trembles! My foot falters!"
Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti
taken from the Aria "Il Dolce Suono" (Oh Sweet Sound),
Opera fans will recall its reference as the "mad scene."
Thanks for the response, Knight. Always a pleasure to read your posts.
I totally see your interpretation in the lyrics of the Iron & Wine song. The romantic in me, takes it in a slightly different direction. I think of it in terms of a lover's quest for love, finding that love, being content in that love, and then losing that love. In essence, I see it as going through the stages of a relationship. Innocence. Searching for a love (Stole me a dog-eared map And called for you everywhere) along the paths well-traveled and not having any luck. To me, the (flightless bird) is just the concept of love. It needs passion and 2 people wanting it at the same time, in order to take flight. The first chorus is the blossing stage of love between two people. Where everything is glorious, and right. Then (the big pill looming) seems to be a problem. Disagreement or otherwise that shows the two people that the love may not be as pure as was hoped for. (Now I'm a fat house cat- Nursing my sore blunt tongue- Watching the warm poison rats- Curl through the wide fence cracks) This is my favorite section of the song. It represents to me, the stage of feeling comfortable and complacent, in a relationship. So much so that you don't see the imminent danger looming (the big pill) that may end the relationship. Then the breakup. The (Big pill stuck going down) is like the saying "sometimes the truth is hard to swallow". The love maybe was never real, or just didn't last.
A pleasure to read your response as well Peanut. Such a question brings out what I like best in any listener... Uniqueness! A meaningful perspective. What is common in both our interpretations is the recognition of painful change, of loss of something precious. Thank you for time taken.
Nothing discernable to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidible, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.Victor Hugo, Les Miserables French dramatist, novelist, & poet (1802 - 1885)
"It's so lonely in this place
So cold I don't believe
And as no-one knows my name
It's easy to pretend
It's easy to believe
There's a shadow on my wall
Dances like my soul
It's so cold now
I swear it will be warm
Here she come now"
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1 giant leap - the way you dream / god/unity and The Fifth Element - The Diva Dance Opera
Nothing like a little old fashioned begging to bring in the new year