This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Sun cuts loose from the frozen
Until it joins with the African sea
In moving it changes its cold and its name
The reason I come and I go is the same
Animal game for me
You call it rain
But the human name
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
And if you don't mind heat in your river and
Fork tongue talking from me
Swim like an eel fantastic snake
Take my love when it's free
Electric feel with me
You call it loud
But the human crowd
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
Change the strings and notes slide
Change the bridge and string shift down
Shift the notes and bridge sings
Fire eating people
Rising toys of the sun
Energy dies without body warm
Icicles ruin your gun
Water my roots the natural thing
Natural spring to the sea
Sulfur springs make my body float
Like a ship made of logs from a tree
Oh, redwoods talk to me
Say it plainly
The human name
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
Snow called water going violent
Damn the end of the stream
Too much cold in one place breaks
That's why you might know what I mean
Consider how small you are
Compared to your scream
The human dream
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
Until it joins with the African sea
In moving it changes its cold and its name
The reason I come and I go is the same
Animal game for me
You call it rain
But the human name
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
And if you don't mind heat in your river and
Fork tongue talking from me
Swim like an eel fantastic snake
Take my love when it's free
Electric feel with me
You call it loud
But the human crowd
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
Change the strings and notes slide
Change the bridge and string shift down
Shift the notes and bridge sings
Fire eating people
Rising toys of the sun
Energy dies without body warm
Icicles ruin your gun
Water my roots the natural thing
Natural spring to the sea
Sulfur springs make my body float
Like a ship made of logs from a tree
Oh, redwoods talk to me
Say it plainly
The human name
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
Snow called water going violent
Damn the end of the stream
Too much cold in one place breaks
That's why you might know what I mean
Consider how small you are
Compared to your scream
The human dream
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
Lyrics submitted by FearAndLoathing
Eskimo Blue Day Lyrics as written by Grace Wing Slick Paul L Kantner
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
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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.
A powerful song about humans and the environment...one of my personal favorite Airplane songs. This song should get an awful lot of airtime with the current global climate crisis, IMO.
The human dream doesn't mean shit to a tree.
So true.
Love this song. The comments above are pretty much dead on with respect to the song's environmentalist themes. I think one additional dimension to the human-trees dynamic is that trees (and other species) don't even comprehend us because they're utterly alien to us. Just as we humans can't fathom how (or if) they think or dream, they can't understand or care about our ideas, values, etc.
I've always liked that the bridge of the song is about the bridge of a guitar or other stringed instrument: "Change the strings and the notes slide/Change the bridge and the strings shift down/Shift the notes and the bridge sings". A connection between these lines and the verses first made sense to me after I tried to adjust the intonation on my guitar -- a procedure that includes making adjustments to the height and angle of its bridge. Unlike tuning the guitar, in which you focus on the pitch of each string individually, intonation affects all strings at once. A small mistake to correct one string can put ALL strings out of adjustment; shift the bridge to bring one string into proper position and you may put the others out of whack. Everything's interrelated, like tundra snows, the African sea, icicles and sulphur springs.
Environmental concerns, yes, but more specifically, man's self-importance and the fact that all his great works, thoughts, institutions, etc., mean nothing to an Earth that has had many life forms come and go over its long history, the insignificance of man's pomposity.
most of it doesnt seem to have much meaning, but some parts definitely have an environmental message. The sound at the end of the song is a big tree falling (apparently after being chopped down).
very deep to natural theme, i like it,
¡Consider how small you are Compared to your scream The human dream Doesn't mean shit to a tree ¡
its perfect, i always think about it we are so small and believe we are the best, but what really is the best is the nature, a tree worths more than some humans, ANIMAL GAME FOR ME!!
i like that wording "the pomposity of man". i had this song in mind during a debate in my high school environmental science class last year. someone on the "go ahead and keep on choppin' on" side said "survival of the fittest". i said "oh, well in that case the exsistence of trees has far outlasted amd will always have outlasted whatever the length of the exsistence of mankind ends up being. they even live longer naturally than humans do, and no body's cutting us down, cept other humans sometimes. We're fit, we're not fit for apocolypse. On that note, this songs a little unsettling at times. We are as life forms as insignificant or significant as dinosaurs, and other extinct creatures. Eventually some kind of being i can't even begin to comprehend in my wildest dreams, nightmares, or trips is gonna be digging up the bones of my kind and bein like "what the fuck is that, i needa keep diggin and find some answers." only difference is itll be a little more organized. maybe not in comoparison to what organization would mean to them. we my be entirely inferior. maybe not. maybe we're more significant cause we might actually fuck this up so bad there isn't a planet for anything after us. subconsciously selfish. more pomposity. "blah blah I blah blah I blah ME. MINE. Blah blah. Needa print money, people want to make money, needa build more homes people wanna have more babies than they can physically or economically, or at least properly raise." but the human dream doesn't mean shit to a tree.
oh forgot to mention, if all goes well those uncomprehendable life forms that dig up all the bones we so well posotioned for them will probably still walk through a few forests regardless of whatever became of us.
Haha, it's almost like a psychedelic version of Shelley's Ozymandias. Though, naturally, Shelley could never sing like Grace...