Recovering The Satellites

All the comments thus far seem very valid for this song, but I'd like to ascribe a variation as this song mirrors a story anyone who grew up in a small town can relate to.

Small towns bread two types of ambition... those who can't wait to get the hell out of dodge and do something "better" and those with less lofty ambitions that simply want to make things "better" right where they are at.

This song just sings a story of a man who grew up in a small town and had his eye on a girl ... a girl with troubles at home... a girl that couldn't wait to get out of there... to leave and find a new life out there...

And likewise.. this boy had dreams too.. just not quite so lofty... while she reached for the stars... he just reached for the ceiling.

But just like all small towns... they have a horrible way of recalling you back when things get rough. You find things difficult out there in the world and you retreat to the safety of your small town... and usually your family in that town.

Families... and mothers especially... have a habit of pulling you back... of bringing you back home. I can't tell you how many times my mom would call me and tell me to come live back home. I was out in orbit... and she wanted to bring me back down to where they were... where the family was.

When you think about it ... think of how much gossip happens in small towns.. how many times there is a resentment of those who "make it out" of there...

There is this awful gossip that just says... "they'll be back."

I think this song just nails that story. It touches me deeply ... as I've gone through those recalls... i've ended back in that small town... hating every minute... feeling like I needed to get back to basics and figure out what they hell to do next with my life.

To walk downtown and see your friends from high school in the same situation... just makes this song real to me.

This song reminds me of a girl I knew. I guess I still do, but not in the same way. She went through some serious trauma as a teen, and she compensated by studying really hard and basically just working herself insane to avoid her problems (We're such crazy babies, little monkey We're so fucked up, you and me ). Eventually, her body broke down and she was put in the hospital for an eating disorder after a bad break-up (Shot down in pieces). It was right about this time that I met her (Maybe I slipped in between), when she had come home from school barely alive for the holidays (why'd you come home to this faithless town?). She was so far away from really facing what was going on in her life, and all I could do was poke at the surface and try to help (Till they see themselves in telescopes/Hey listen, do you see yourself in me?) I think the line that really describes the view from the outside looking in was, She sees shooting stars and comet tails/She's got heaven in her eyes/She says I don't need to be an angel/But I'm nothing if I'm not this high. I still keep in touch with her, because she I guess she was everybody's satellite now, circling and circling but never really touching down. And it wasn't a lifetime commitment I could make, and I guess she wasn't my satellite for long at all. But I still hope, someday, she comes down on someone and can be happy and content again.

i'm gonna cheat here... this is from annabegins.com.... this is Adams take on the album as a whole...

"I could tell you that the songs are about a guy doing this, but it's all me. I'm that guy. I think the "first album" is really about a lot of the shit I was going through and how difficult it was, about being unable to function within it. It was very frustrating and bitter, and it culminates with "Have You Seen Me Lately"--a howl which says "Not only do you not know me, but neither do I." It sums up the touring, fame, and everything, saying where it brought me to. The second half of the album is about a lot of the same feelings, but it's more cathartic, more about dealing with it. I find "Miller's Angels" to be about something that horrifies you and you're crying with it. It's not exactly chronological, but it's definitely moving from one place to another, in fit's and starts, one step forward and two steps back, that kind of thing. Um, well it still seems kinda weird to me. Just because the songs are very personal to me. But I didnt... they seem so singularly about me that I didn't think they would relate to other people. I didn't think other people would relate to them that well. I've sort of learned that thats not necessarily true. But it's still..... I just accept that it happens now, but it's sort of strange to me. Because they feel... I don't know.... when I write a song I just write it about myself. Generally. So. Then you know. They feel real personal. I don't.... I guess there are things that people have in common that make it meaningful for them as well I guess. I don't understand what that is."

and this is the song...

" Recovering the sattelites has a sense of trying to resolve that question. I came to the realization that my life will always get shot up into the sky and then come crashing down. It's mostly about myself, but it's a very important statement about what we're doing. I wanted this, so I will take the other stuff. I don't have to like it, but it's my life, and I'm not going to throw it away. I write very few songs about other people, It's more about me. It's what I know. I defenatly think August and Everything After came to a place at the end of it [in the song "A Murder of One" where a guy says--addressing a woman in an abusive relationship--"Get out or your life will be a waste." He's also addressing himself, how he abuses himself in life. It says at the end, "Change." I think this album is an attempt to do that, while being overwhelmed by all things that are happening. Like the guy says in "A Long December": "And there's a reason to believe/ Maybe this year will be better than the last/ I can't remember the last thing you said as you were leavin'/ Now the days go by so fast." That's me in a nutshell--people leaving, me leaving, days going past. By the end of the song, what he says is "I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself/ To hold on to these moments as they pass." You have to remember to hold on to these moments. Life can be flashing moments that pass by you and add up to nothing, or they can be things that you keep and cherish. Loss doesn't mean gone forever: you have your memories. The things you lose don't have to be such ghosts as we always make them out to be. They can be memories that we can keep--especially me, since I get to write songs about them."

enjoy,,,, although from the looks of it,,, i doubt many people will be reading this.....

The beauty of music is its a dynamic language that can be interpreted in whatever way a person wants it to be, as is the case with this song. After reading the above entries, I can't help but think how narrowly I have thought of this song in my own head. Nevertheless, I have my own interpretation or translation if you will and it has more to do with how it makes me feel than what I think it means. Here goes... Every time I hear this song it reminds me of my little sister. All my siblings are very close and my sister was the first to move away from the small town we grew up in. Its a shit town too. I was the second to live. We both reside in large cities in California and we both thrive on the hustle and bustle, the concrete jungle, the opportunities and new experiences that metropolitan areas provide. We privately joke about how visiting our hometown is like watching an old movie for the 200th time. Its familiar but quite boring. And, of course, all our family is still there and the occasions for reuniting there are few. But there is definitely a quietness of being that is somewhat soothing when you're home, something that you can't find anywhere else. Gonna get back to basics. There is a sense of being able to collect yourself at home, to escape. So, why did I come home, to this faithless town? I miss my sister because she represents home to me, like my two brothers also do. And being away from family can mess with your head if you are truly close to them. There is also a sense of defeat if you must, for reasons beyond your control, return home. Its a lifetime commitment, leaving or returning. And Mom is always there to recover the satellites, her kids, and to ask, 'When are you going to come down?' She watched and still watches as her babies drift violently away, all so we can find ourselves, to see ourselves in telescopes. And sometimes what we find is really fucked up...We are such crazy babies, little Monkey. And here again, is why I think of my sister, because on this same album, the song Monkey seems to be about the author's sister....and another song (?) has the lyrics..."Leave my sister alone. She is a flower." So, we look and look to discover who we truly are inside and out and believe that we don't need to be angels, or kings, or rich and powerful, but we are nothing if we are not this high...far above home, seeing it from a distance. And in the stream of time, this song repeats itself, the returning, the orbiting, the crashing, the relaunching, the coming down. I miss my sister.

This song seems to have quite a few drug references ("When are you gonna come down","Your mother recognizes all your desperate displays"). But personally finding the whole drug thing horribly overdone, I like to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it is much more general.

To me, it's all about the very hard choices one faces growing up. The decisions between "Drifting violently away" and "Coming home to this faithless town," neither of which look all that attractive. There's the sadness through a friend's eyes, watching the other progress from the rebellious dream of "being the wildest people they ever hoped to see," to the consequences of "Falling from the sky," to the defeated realization that "We only stay in orbit for a moment of time" and "Everybody really knows for sure ... That you're gonna come down."

It's the usual Adam Duritz defeatism peeking through, but the story takes the listener for a great ride, and the music is so raw that I absolutely love it. Instead of depressing you from part one like other songs of their's ('Round Here', 'Daylight Fading'), this one is at least mature enough to take us through different facets of the journey there.

This song is about never being able to escape your upbringing, and despite what facades you put in your way, you are a product of your childhood. He describes youthful, wild-eyed ambition ("the wildest people they ever hoped to see "), painful adolesence ("Your mother recognizes all you're desperate displays And she watches as her babies drift violently away"), the hope and dreams of getting to that place they call adulthood, and then the realisation on achieving this of where you came from (" Gonna get back to basics "). The home town is personified and those that leave are satellites that feel gravity's pull of this place, and one by one the realisation that the town was what shaped their minds....is the recovering of the satellites.

As mentioned in the comments to Monkey, this song is also about Courteney Cox.

I think maybe there's too much attention paid to the whole childhood thing. In a sense I guess it is ... when you grow up you leave people behind, specifically potential lovers. The character remembers having this friend who he had a lot of fun with but had pretty much forgotten. Then something happened to make him just go back and take stock of his life and he remembered all those people he's left behind. But trying to recover the sattellites (the people who have drifted away) is a life-time commitment.

I just think this epitomises the entire second Crows album. The first album was about him trying to get away from the person and the situation he was living in ('keep myself away from me' - see Perfect Blue Buildings and Time and Time Again + his general detest of the world he lived in - Round here).

This song and album is all about getting away from the person he has become and RETURNING to that solitary depressed 'fucked up' figure from AAEA.

All the comments thus far seem very valid for this song, but I'd like to ascribe a variation as this song mirrors a story anyone who grew up in a small town can relate to.

Small towns bread two types of ambition... those who can't wait to get the hell out of dodge and do something "better" and those with less lofty ambitions that simply want to make things "better" right where they are at.

This song just sings a story of a man who grew up in a small town and had his eye on a girl ... a girl with troubles at home... a girl that couldn't wait to get out of there... to leave and find a new life out there...

And likewise.. this boy had dreams too.. just not quite so lofty... while she reached for the stars... he just reached for the ceiling.

But just like all small towns... they have a horrible way of recalling you back when things get rough. You find things difficult out there in the world and you retreat to the safety of your small town... and usually your family in that town.

Families... and mothers especially... have a habit of pulling you back... of bringing you back home. I can't tell you how many times my mom would call me and tell me to come live back home. I was out in orbit... and she wanted to bring me back down to where they were... where the family was.

When you think about it ... think of how much gossip happens in small towns.. how many times there is a resentment of those who "make it out" of there...

There is this awful gossip that just says... "they'll be back."

I think this song just nails that story. It touches me deeply ... as I've gone through those recalls... i've ended back in that small town... hating every minute... feeling like I needed to get back to basics and figure out what they hell to do next with my life.

To walk downtown and see your friends from high school in the same situation... just makes this song real to me.