Alphaville – Forever Young

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  General Comment:Rod Stewart co-wrote this.He has a song called "Forever Young".

  Flag emuInAmuumuuon March 16, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:This is a very depressing song to me. Maybe it's just because I tend to interpret songs in the darkest possible way.
  
  You can think of it in many ways, literally and figuratively, but here's what I think.
  
  To me, the more literal interpretation of this song is that a nuclear war has already begun, and everyone knows that it's just a matter of time. A group of teenagers/young people are sitting together in a bomb shelter, reflecting on their fates, lamenting that their lives are being cut short when they still have so many dreams left to achieve. They feel completely helpless, because they know they can't do anything to change what's happened. They're at the mercy of their governments and the bombs. But still, they manage to find a bit of hope and peace in their situation by remembering all the happy times they had in their lives, and reliving them together. And, as they know they will never grow old, they will, in a way, be forever young.
  
  No wonder this song depresses me.:/

  Flag boscaresqueon August 05, 2009   Link

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  My Interpretation:I always thought this song had two narrators, one was the optimistic youth voice, and the more cynical older wiser voice was sort of responding.
  
  I love the lines "Can you imagine if this race is won? Turn our golden faces to the sun" I always thought that was a really sweet way of acknowledging getting old with somebody.

  Flag WhosGonnaFindMeon February 04, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:Some of the best lyrics I've heard/seen. To me, this song is all about the exuberance of youth and that it's a very short-lived thing (so you have to make the most of it). The Killers should totally cover this song!

  Flag coffeekaton October 28, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:This is such a nostalgic song for me... makes me feel sad and happy at the same time... To me the song is just about loss of innocence like wishing you could just live forever young and not have to grow up and face life. But despite the song's melancholy tone, it seems to offer a glimmer of hope for me.

  Flag hosj1234on July 31, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:This song always reminds me of my freshman year in college in 1985-86. A girl I liked listened to it over and over; she told me it was her favorite song because it reminded her of her little brother who had died in a car accident. I barely even remember her name was Sarah after these years but whenever I hear this even now I think of her and her little brother.

  Flag genetruon January 29, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:i've always loved the instrumentral part toward the end of the song - so surreal.
  
  but this song total took a whole new meaning for last summer when i spent an awesome week with this guy. now i only listen to it on a special occasion...when i wanna reminisce...

  Flag cherrytuneson January 24, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:oh man.. this song really deep...
  
  i had mixed interpretation about this lyric.. but all are very very sad..
  
  first: the first paragraph seems to just enjoy every moment of life.. may be in a war situation, why waiting for the bomb, let's just dance..
  
  second: it's an issue for all beings in the world.. nothing truly last forever.. nothing truly permanence..
  (i recalled Buddha's teaching though.. birth, old age, sick, death..)
  for some may grasping youth by plastic surgery.. but i think most, grasp the memory of youth..
  oh it's so sad.. =~(
  
  all our comments in this website.. in the next 30-40 years.. may be read by someone else.. but where do i'll be..
  i don't want to perish like a fading horse..

  Flag aquaphxon January 16, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:Yes, definitely cold war stuff and coming out of a country that was smack in the middle of the cold war with a divided Germany and a divided Berlin. People were really afraid and very aware of the possibility of nuclear war, witness many other cultural things like "The Day After" or Sting's "Russians" song or even The Smiths "Ask" ("if it's not love then it's the bomb that will bring us together"). In the 80s, "The Bomb" was pretty clearly understood to refer to an atomic bomb.
  
  Everyone was very aware that the human race was poised to destroy itself, but there was not much an average person could do. ("Are you gonna drop the bomb or not.")
  
  Not only is it the cry of youth for the possibilities for it yet to fulfill, but the idea of lost youth forever unfulfilled by nuclear obliteration. Killed possibilities times a million, ten million, 100 million, 8 billion?
  
  Yes this song is sad because it talks about the different types of people (some like water, heat, etc) and so many possibilities for good things to happen and good experiences that will be lost prematurely.
  
  Even without the nuclear Armageddon overtones it's still sad since it points out the inevitability of death, maybe without so much lost potential, but still ultimately sad.
  
  It's the perfect mix of a beautiful song that is even more beautiful because it's sad and it points out the shortness of life and needing to try and fulfill the good possibilities of it.

  Flag sbfisheron November 25, 2007   Link

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  General Comment:This song has long been believed to be about suicide, which may be why it strikes a lot of people as sad. The singer certainly sounds depressed to me.
  
  It sounds as if he's meeting with someone who he expects to dump him--"Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?"--and wants to delay the bad news a little bit--"Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while." He is "hoping for the best but expecting the worst." It also sounds as if he might, in his depression, be trying to convince this person to also commit suicide.
  
  "Forever young" in this case seems to refer to dying young, a romanticized feeling that suicide will preserve him as forever young; he will never have to know himself as old and sickly--"It's so hard to get old without a cause, I don't want to perish like a fading horse." He has a kind of adolescent view of his youth and how suicide would preserve it--"Youth's like diamonds in the sun, and diamonds are forever."
  
  And he wonders why anyone else would want to endure growing old--"Some are like water, some are like the heat...Sooner or later they all will be gone, why don't they stay young?"
  
  Looking back on this song, it reminds me--sadly--of how adolescents can sometimes be so sensitive, how they can often think something means their world is falling apart when it really isn't, how their lack of perspective causes them to get as upset as the singer in this song is--though I also get the impression that more than being dumped might be bothering him. Maybe more than anything, the song makes me feel sad about how some young people have to suffer the misery of depression at a time in life when it's so hard to handle.

  Flag brgosson October 31, 2007   Link

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