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The day our house collapsed
I went down stream.
I followed the swans
Like I follow my dreams.
Oh! I was living on borrowed time in a
Borrowed house for a borrowed crime.
In need of help I came to your door.
Saw the spike of the railings from
The 28/3rd floor.
Singing
"Build your castle, stop collecting stones
And the river bed shall not be your home"
To the lighthouse my friend!
I bless your words and education
To the lighthouse my friend.
Just go! just go!
To the lighthouse my friend.
I am sorry that you came to find
"Great great minds against themselves conspire'
Now the bombs drop around our feet,
Do we throw them back
Or bow and greet them.
Everyone now, is so terrified
Of the glowing dark
And those orange skies.
"Build your castle, stop throwing stones
Cause those fire birds are coming down on our homes"
To the lighthouse my friends
It cannot even be a question
To the lighthouse my friends
We must go, we must go
I went down stream.
I followed the swans
Like I follow my dreams.
Oh! I was living on borrowed time in a
Borrowed house for a borrowed crime.
In need of help I came to your door.
Saw the spike of the railings from
The 28/3rd floor.
Singing
"Build your castle, stop collecting stones
And the river bed shall not be your home"
To the lighthouse my friend!
I bless your words and education
To the lighthouse my friend.
Just go! just go!
To the lighthouse my friend.
I am sorry that you came to find
"Great great minds against themselves conspire'
Now the bombs drop around our feet,
Do we throw them back
Or bow and greet them.
Everyone now, is so terrified
Of the glowing dark
And those orange skies.
"Build your castle, stop throwing stones
Cause those fire birds are coming down on our homes"
To the lighthouse my friends
It cannot even be a question
To the lighthouse my friends
We must go, we must go
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'The day our house collapsed
I went down stream.
Ifollowed the swans
Like i follow my dreams.'
the line about a house collapsing probably refers to mental breakdowns as in a 'house' being a state of mental sanity and 'collapsing' as in breaking down
and also the line ' i followed the swans like i follow my dreams' is a refrence to the end of the novel
'While they set sail for the lighthouse, Lily attempts to complete her long-unfinished painting. She reconsiders her memory of Mrs Ramsay, grateful for her help in pushing Lily to continue with her art, yet at the same time struggling to free herself from the tacit control Mrs Ramsay had over other aspects of her life. Upon finishing the painting and seeing that it satisfies her, she realizes that the execution of her vision is more important to her than the idea of leaving some sort of legacy in her work – a lesson Mr Ramsay has yet to learn'-wikipedia
'I bless your words and education'
and when he says this i think he means he loves woolf's work
I am sorry that you came to find
"great great minds
against themselvesconspire'
when he says this i think he means he is sad to know that woolf's depression caused her end
it has a very sad tone to it
i definetly feel it is about mrs.woolf
to me this song is about finding sanctuary - the lighthouse - in the midst of turmoil - the storm - , whatever that may be. sancturay could be enlightenment, like people stopping judging woolf for her beliefs.
the song seems to suggest it may be blaming yourself or taking the blame for something you shouldn't - a 'borrowed crime'.
its so inspiring because patrick is commanding us to this sanctuary - 'it cannot be a question, just go', hes taking entire, selfless responsibility for us, the people who are listening to his music, so that if we have no one to take care of us that fully, he will, in his own indirect but perfect way.
'build your castle stop collecting stones and the riverbed shall not be your home'. before i found out this song was about woolf, it seemed like a really accurate metaphor to me - stop drifting, find your place, and you won't live in destitution. the whole war imagery again just builds up the idea of this turmoil. 'im sorry that you came to find great great minds against themselves conspire' seems to be apologising on behalf of the world about what you grew up into and that you ever had to find yourself in these situations.
its a song for people on the end of their tether, like woolf.
it works both ways, i think.
He is such a genius. Especially wind in the wires. I think its a masterpiece.
The first world war also features a lot in the novel, the first section (of three) being pre-war and the last is post-war.
Great minds conspiring against themselves is probably Mr Ramsay's struggle with his own work as a philosopher - he sees his intellect as stuck on the letter R, as if intellect was on the scale of A to Z. R is is own initial, he is stuck at his own self.
OK, it goes on. In Mrs Dalloway a character called Septimus throws himself from a window onto railings. A doctor is running into the room to take him away and Septimus has the choice between giving in to the rule of the doctor (to a life he doesn't want to live), or to ending it altogether. Often in Woolf's novels, characters that take their own lives do so because they are looking at an inevitabile death anyway.
Here war comes back again, the second world war. When Woolf killed herself in 1941 it looked really likely that (at that time) England might lose to Hitler. Her and her husband had a suicide pact in place, as they knew that they would proabably be murdered if the South Coast - where they lived, was invadec. (It turns out Hitler did have a 'hit list' that included Woolf and her husband). She thought that she was nearing death and like in the song, describes hearing bombs dropping on nearby London in her diaries and planes flying over them. She was also starting to decline into madness again and took the decision that Septimus did. She was being chased anyway, so she made her own decision to jump.
That sounds really-over dramatic!! really its about choices and inevitability. Whenever one of her characters dies, all the others recognise life even more fully and clearly. I think that's what the song is getting at. But there's a lot of the song that doesn't make sense to her work, so we might all be wrong!!
I agree that "endings" figure largely into her writing, but it's more about where edges meet, for instance, the convergence of land and sea. Interconnectedness and the endless cycles of life are at the heart of her work, making endings almost an impossibility. The world keeps going no matter who jumps out the window, or fills their pockets with stones. Death is not an end.
Septimus didn't choose to jump to avoid giving in to the doctor, or to avoid living life. He loved life, as Clarissa did. It was human nature that he couldn't live with.
Oh fuck it.
that might have a bearing on the song!
"oh! i was living on borrowed time in a
borrowed house for a borrowed crime.
in need of help i came to your door.
saw the spike of the railings from
the 28/3rd floor."
- is a reference to her novel Mrs Dalloway where Septimus, a young man suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from WWI, kills himself by throwing himself out of his window (in a rented house) on to the spiked railings below because he is haunted by the memories of his dead comrades and the guilt of 'having survived' (the 'borrowed crime').