| Seal – Crazy Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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this song for me is deeply spiritual. When I think of this song I think of the way my own consciousness has expanded as well as humanity's collective consciousness. When I hear this song I think about the fact that people are becoming more aware of their own souls. I get so spiritually high listening to this song and thinking about where humans have been, are now, and are going. line by line: A man decides after seventy years, That what he goes there for, is to unlock the door. This man is going to church to "unlock the door" - the Doors of thr 60s taught us about opening our "doors of perception," and this too is what church is intended to do, in spite of those around him who "criticize and sleep" I don't think the tripping and the fractals and stuff has to be interpreted specifically as acid or drugs. I definitely believe he's talking about the expansion of consciousness, but it need not necessarily be driven through LSD. In the first line, "only child know" harkens to a famous line by Jesus that says something like "you must make yourself as a child if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven." it sort of also reminds me of that famous line by Wordsworth: "Child is the father of the man" (this was also found in Brian Wilson's previously unreleased album, Smile). -- If children are first souls that have not yet come down from heaven, they are closer to God, the "father," than a man on earth who has been away from Heaven for man years. So here's what I think: I think Seal is talking about what Alan Watts called "cosmic conscisousness," a phrase that has been echoed by a number of new agers and gurus. Watts and his contemporaries, including Richard Alpert (Ram Dass of "Be Here Now") believe that Jesus experienced cosmic consciousness, a sudden burst of consciousness that caused him to believe that he was God -- not invalid, because Watts says that we all inhabit the potential for greater consciousness. But these gurus were in the 60s and 70s. More and more people are developing this cosmic consciousness, I believe, and I think it's reflected in Seal's 1991 lyrics. Check this out: Listen to the way he talks about "And then you see things The size Of which you've never known before." And I'm not sure entirely what to think of the pill, but I am convinced it's not literal. Think of the idea of instantaneous transformation, and perhaps even the idea of Adam and Eve's transgression of eating the forbidden fruit. I believe this a song about humanity, and I think someone might have been right when they mentioned the idea of the Berlin wall coming down. Another major event that happened that year (i think) was the massacre at Tianamen Square in China led by a group of pro-capitalist students: "Crazy yellow people walking through my head. One of them's got a gun, to shoot the other one. And yet together they were friends at school Ohh, get it, get it, get it, get it no no!" just a guess. but I get pretty moved by this song. it makes the hair on my hair stand up every time. |
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| Nick Drake – River Man Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I guess I can't be sure, but to me it makes a lot of sense that this song is about death or Thanatos or dwelling on mortality... River Man is the legendary guide on the River Styx who carries souls who have just entered the underworld into Hades. It's pretty eerie coming from Nick Drake when you know that he did, in fact, kill himself, and you consider that this song may have been written during a time of rumination about where his own soul would go after death. Gonna see the river man Gonna to tell him all I can About the ban On feeling free "the ban on feeling free"? well, everyone would commit suicide if we thought it was OK - if it wasn't sinful, or if our soul would simply melt away into heaven, right? It's like the famous Shakespearean soliloquay about "To Be or Not To Be," where Hamlet considers suicide if it weren't for the mystery of "What dreams may come" - what follows death? and could it be worse than life? Perhaps also borrowed from Shakespeare is this idea of "lilac time," which sounds like a reference to Ophelia, who killed herself in a fit of madness. If he tells me all he knows About the way his river flows I don't suppose It's meant for me I dunno if this was indeed a specific intent of the song, but it runs chills down my spine. I listen to this song and think of my own mortality. Ironic, too, about the song, is that it is so beautiful and light, like his syrupy voice, that you can't even be sure it does exist :). |
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| Randy Newman – Marie Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| This is a really sweet song. In the liner notes on his Best Of album, Randy wrote that he always thought it was a funny idea that a guy couldn't tell a girl how he felt without being drunk. Sweet. In the southern way, anyway. | |
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