Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
The vacuum created by the arrival of freedom
And the possibilities it seems to offer
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
A series of shocks - sneakers fall apart
Earth keeps on rolling - witnesses falling
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
Yeah, yeah, yeah - up the hill backwards
It'll be alright ooo-ooo
While we sleep they go to work
We're legally crippled it's the death of love
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
More idols then realities
I'm OK, you're so-so
Yeah, yeah, yeah - up the hill backwards
It'll be alright ooo-ooo
And the possibilities it seems to offer
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
A series of shocks - sneakers fall apart
Earth keeps on rolling - witnesses falling
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
Yeah, yeah, yeah - up the hill backwards
It'll be alright ooo-ooo
While we sleep they go to work
We're legally crippled it's the death of love
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it
More idols then realities
I'm OK, you're so-so
Yeah, yeah, yeah - up the hill backwards
It'll be alright ooo-ooo
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
Its almost ironic to have a personal feeling on a song that "has nothing to do with you, if you can grasp it"
The Vacuum created by the arrival of freedom- San Francisco is most liberal place I have ever been, and it feels like a vacuum, no gravity, no fall. A lot of people hover there, weightless. there are many possibilities the city has to offer.
But its got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it... Thats the feeling I get from citires, It makes you realize how many people are out there. And the vacuum exsists with or without you.
A series of shocks.... Earthquakes
Sneakers fall apart, The hills in that city eat your shoes if you live and walk there every day.
Earth keeps on rolling, Witnesses falling...
Up the hill backwards, you see people walking uphill backwards because its so steep. I think its a metaphor for the a hard climb or difficult situation and approaching it from exactly the most backwards way. But sometimes its the easier way, like climbing those hills in SF.
The rest of the song describes the people there, to me anyway. The people who want to be noticed. The pretensive-ness of people would rather be idols than real. The corporate greed, the zombies who work in that fucked up financial district. Its the death of love alright. But its not a personal attack on me, i guess. Its got nothing to do with me, if one can grasp it. Those people working for the man there are just walking up the hill backwards, because its easier. The advertising, the skyscrapers, the business men in suits... Are more like Idols, than realities.
Music is wonderful in its abilities to be so personal.
What's going on world-wide or universally, or maybe with Bowie himself, is not dependent upon you - get over yourself. The line ("if one can grasp it") is meant to be sarcastic, I think... like "if your ego can wrap its head around that".
I probably am wrong.
As far as an analysis of the title line goes, I'm not sure which, but I'd go with "up the hill backwards it'll be alright" meaning that up the hill, reversed, is downhill; and so either things are going downhill, but it'll be alright, or alternatively, that it's easier to go downhill than up. So just take a different approach to the problem, and it'll be alright.
"The vacuum created by the arrival of freedom & the possibilities it seems to offer" is referring to one reaching maturity.
The continuing refrain "It's got nothing to do with you, if one can grasp it" means, if you're old enough to understand, you're not experiencing it. Your teenage years are confusing, & you don't figure out all you've been through until AFTER you've been through it.
The very oblique lines:
A series of shocks - sneakers fall apart
Earth keeps on rolling - witnesses falling
are typical Bowie. They can mean anything. Certainly it's a shock to watch things die, but the world does keep on rolling, & people fall out of your life as your define yourself.
"While we sleep they go to work" Adults go to work, children & teenagers can sleep late.
"We're legally crippled it's the death of love." The laws are different for young people - you have to wait to drive, to buy booze & smokes, to work - you rely on others, like your family. It is a form of legal crippling, & it certainly isn't the freedom one needs to truly love.
"More idols than realities." Pretty self-explanatory. Remember all the pop stars, movie stars, etc., you idolized when you were a kid?
"I'm OK, you're so-so." I think this line is Bowie making a slight joke about the old "I'm OK-you're OK" seventies pop psychology quote, but I can't be entirely sure.
Being a teenager - growing up - IS going up the hill backwards. It's not an easy process. I first heard this song when I was a teenager, & it really helped me that a wizened old rock star like Bowie assured me it would be all right.
Look at Bowie's symbology: the lightning bolt. That stands for the Crown/Kether chakra which is "g-d" or the rest of the world which is taken in "in the flash of an image" of an objective element radiating its subjective meaning. So this flash/lightningbolt/"shock" in this case is that in the web-like interconnected view of reality, each node a person/sentient-perspective, well, at certain times in history this "implicitness" just out and out shocks some fool who understands and takes it somewhere. This Throne of Understanding is created by teh previous cultures that then gave way to that period and then birthed the exact moment for such an understanding to take place...so "It's got nothing to do with you" is so very true when you take into mind the thousands of factors that allowed say a Galileo or Planck or Einstein to be hit by the "idea bolt"...genetics disposition...education...cultural food staples...the land which all these cradle and made available. So very NOT one's choice in the worldview promoted in this song. One can look back upon things and say "yeah, I knew I was setting myself up for a moment of genius" ...but really...no one would have gone in "that" direction had they really not been urged by history's many lendings and the emergent need for some-thing to be found out. So then yes, "earth keeps on rolling" (passing of time..history)..."witnesses falling"(people that see others being hit by the bolt but falling for not being the ones that were so lucky to have been hit).
"The vacuum created by the arrival of freedom" would be much like, say, something a retiree may face upon leaving work to a full "freedom"...but without any structure or purpose it can seem like so muc ha vacuum to so many you see them going right back to some type of job to have purpose and human contact. I think this relates in some manner to Bowie's own unbounded lifestyle which, having recognized this principle, is founded on his own strength of self-discipline to create the actual boundaries of his career and self. "Nobody down here can do it for me"...which appears in "When You Rock and Roll With Me" is part of the same concept.
The end of that one line being "and the possibilities it seems to offer" would relate to the nature of choice from imagined, fantisized, researched, learned options for "how to be" and also, in the next line "it's got nothing to do with you" referencing the limited nature of actual "freedom", it being bounded only by those actual options available to your skill, class, talent, investedness, etc. "Land of the Free"...sure...you go out and get that job you can't afford to obtain...wow those people in conversation that are above your level of intelligence...get that hot size-queen at the bar with your undersized (>>>>> Anyone else have any ideas???