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Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand
I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long
'Cause I have wandered through this world
As each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams
People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it's too late for me
Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand
I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long
'Cause I have wandered through this world
As each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams
People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it's too late for me
Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry
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And I’ve witnessed great hardships of a fearful humanity, and I’ve seen/understood all of these things with a lack of emotion and empathy
Now I want to search for a different interpretation, meaning to life and suffering
I have done all that I could
To perceive the evil and good things in the world as an active participant, with courage and less fear
I need Your help to be successful
God, my perception
Tell me how my view of the world and life is warped
Was I unwise to get complacent with this world, and with myself?
‘Cause I have not lived my whole life with a concrete, meaningful purpose
And I’ve let the moments and events in the world present themselves, instead of creating them
I’ve been waiting for something unknown to pull me out of ambiguity, and give me meaning
Some people truly follow their own free will
I never noticed them until I realized
That life is extremely short, and I’m losing time
God, my perception
Tell me how you see the world and me
I hear the cries of those with great hardships and fears, as well as the cries of people who realized they've wasted part or most of their lives. I also hear cries from my former and present self.
Can I still achieve my goals and dreams, or have I wasted too much of my life?
God, my beliefs
I cannot see You or find true meaning
Is this the price for not only excessively allowing the world to shape me, but sacrificing emotion in order to be successful and strong?
For a person struggling and in the process of getting faith... that's how I interpreted it. GB^2
I'm someone who always took pride in my efforts to overcome my preconceptions and aversions, and perceive everything for exactly what it is, rather than what i want it to be.
Resisting my own prejudices and fears of contemplating what scares me or disgusts me or angers me in other people, i've focused all my life on undertanding and accepting the world no matter what.
Over time, though, this mission has made me into someone who cannot take my focus away from all the pain i've learned to perceive so well. I compulsively observe, and feel for, and have ended up too fixated on observing and feeling =for= others to actually just participate myself.
The shock came when I finally saw that, apparently, the very people i'd learned so well to feel for, were themselves proceeding to live their lives, and in fact, more relaxed about their place in the world than I probably was. They haven't come to see things as clearly as I probably do, but it looks to me like they've retained something I've lost - something I never intended to lose; and now that i see i've lost it it's bitterly ironic.
In trying so long to clearly see, understand and feel the exact situation of those around me, and bravely face it, i've forfeited my own sense of living life for and as myself, and, ultimately, the ability to feel my own heart break.
Onto my next point -- no matter how much he wants to be, Jackson Browne is NOT black. First of all- that last name. Browne. Can you BE any more politically incorrect? What the hell is wrong with him? He should be called like, Jackson Tan. or more accurately, Jackson Blue, cause once I've finished murdering him, he'll be blue and rotting. You're probably thinking to yourself now, "what the fuck does all this have to do with the SONG?" I'm getting to that. You know why he's at the eye doctor? 'Cause he stabbed himself in the eyes with an axe 48 times. wanna know why? cause he wanted to be blind just like Stevie Wonder, cause he thought that owuld make him more black. I am disgusted. What a poser. Shut the fuck up. Go back to Whiteville, you white trash fuck.
first of all, thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to respond to my comment. I know you must be SWAMPED with all the responsibilities that one who lives in his parents' basement has -- WoW raids, A&P trips to pick up black & milds and diet mountain dew for mom, going over to the dehumidifier to piss in the bucket, not killing yourself because you know you're a pathetic lonely piece of shit who would cause jackson browne to chop off his hands and rip out his vocal cords if he knew liked his music, the list goes on and on. but i understand that you find an obvious joke comment from a guy you don't know and most likely never will SO APPALLING that you just HAD to let him know that he's evil. Evil? what a joke. I never killed millions of jews (although the thought crosses my mind every time i'm stuck behind one of them in the supermarket line. did you REALLY need seventeen hams, or did you just buy them because you have seventeen cut-out coupons for them? for fucks sake, your not even allowed to eat it!), i never raped and killed dudes in a clown suit (clowns are fucking gross), and most importantly, i never advocated that you could ever make anything of your loser self, like the american education system did. how they have failed me so.
i'm letting you off easy because i can tell at this point you're already crying. so instead of giving you a list of reasons why you should come over and be the first person to give me a handjob in four months, i'll rant about how horrible verizon wireless is instead. verizon wireless tests on kittens. but they test for DANGER, rather than SAFETY. the reason the iphone hasn't yet come to verizon (apple is also evil), is that it has yet to kill a single kitten. verizon supports a kitten massacre. verizon stole my bike and my kool aid. "but ashowofhands," you say, "that's racist!" No, it's not. YOU'RE the one who's racist for THINKING that's racist. i need a bike to get to school in the morning, and i occasionally enjoy making myself a pitcher of red or purple, and yet i'm so white that by comparison you, the typical songmeanings reader, ALMOST don't look pathetic. so there you go. i hope that when you go out and buy your next verizon phone, hitler pops out of the top and punches you in the dick. you sure as hell deserve it.
I have a sense of humor so I can get a giggle out of this post and can almost appreciate its "creativity". If your were trying to make a point about what JB was generally responding to in writing this song in the first place, then I think you hit the on the head. It may have been written during the Vietnam war, I dunno, but it at least was written in response to negative contributions of angry and shallow people and the darkness they bring to the world. You're a master, whether it be to indirectly make that point, or maybe you are actually living the part.
Thanks for the laugh. Good luck, and if this is truly from your heart, I hope for you that you can find real happiness some day. I know that you will probably respond to this post with all the sarcasm and hateful dialect, as you did the last poster, and that is OK with me. I'm not bothered by it as I'm sure not many others in cyber space will take you all that seriously. I'll just laugh it off with a grain of salt and continue pitying you, you mother fucker. Ha ha.
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand"
He's old enough to have experience, he's been around, and he's seen what the world is like; now he wants to understand why.
"I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding"
He tries to see both the good and bad in people, and to be truthful to himself.
"Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long"
He wonders now if those sort of people who deliberately blind themselves to the harsh truth arent happier afterall.
"Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams"
He keeps waiting for things to improve.
"People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems"
I'm not sure about this part.
"I hear their cries
Just say if it's too late for me"
he's been hardened to the horrible things in the world, and wonders if it's too late to retrieve his previous innocence.
"Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry"
he's been hardened to the horrible aspects of life, and can't now see the good or beautiful aspects.
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems"
He is becoming aware of others around him and what he sees is changing him, possibly maturing him, making him more mature than his outward appearance.