Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
There is a marker
No one sees it 'cause the sand
Has covered over all the messages it kept
Misunderstanding, what original truth was
And out expanding, in a faith, but not in love
What went wrong?
Walking tightrope high over moral ground
Seeing visions of falling up somehow
Do come down
With the living let what is living love
So unforgiving, yet needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say?
Those undecided needn't have faith to be free
And those misguided, there was a plan for them to be
Now you got both sides claiming killing in god's name
But god is nowhere to be found, conveniently
What goes on?
Walking tightrope high over moral ground
Walk the bridges before you burn them down
Do come round
With the living let what is living love
Unforgiving, yet needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say? What do you say?
I feel a sickness. A sickness coming over me
Like watching freedom being sucked straight out to sea
And the solution? Well, from me far would it be
But the delusion is feeling dangerous to me
What goes wrong?
Walking tightrope high over moral ground
Seeing visions of falling up somehow
Do come down
With the living, let what is living love
Are forgiving, yet needing forgiveness first
What do you say? God, what do you say?
What do you say?
Calling out, calling out
Calling out, calling out
No one sees it 'cause the sand
Has covered over all the messages it kept
Misunderstanding, what original truth was
And out expanding, in a faith, but not in love
What went wrong?
Walking tightrope high over moral ground
Seeing visions of falling up somehow
Do come down
With the living let what is living love
So unforgiving, yet needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say?
Those undecided needn't have faith to be free
And those misguided, there was a plan for them to be
Now you got both sides claiming killing in god's name
But god is nowhere to be found, conveniently
What goes on?
Walking tightrope high over moral ground
Walk the bridges before you burn them down
Do come round
With the living let what is living love
Unforgiving, yet needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say? What do you say?
I feel a sickness. A sickness coming over me
Like watching freedom being sucked straight out to sea
And the solution? Well, from me far would it be
But the delusion is feeling dangerous to me
What goes wrong?
Walking tightrope high over moral ground
Seeing visions of falling up somehow
Do come down
With the living, let what is living love
Are forgiving, yet needing forgiveness first
What do you say? God, what do you say?
What do you say?
Calling out, calling out
Calling out, calling out
Lyrics submitted by N0 C0DE 79
Marker in the Sand Lyrics as written by Mike Mccready Eddie Vedder
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I Love this song. It's everything I feel inside.
I've been a jammer for years now, and as i learn / study their music more, I feel that I grow better as a person. I've often wondered if Eddie and the boys are Christian. From what I gather, eddie is an open-mind, pondering all facets of religion, be it Eastern or Western. As the band has matured, however, I think a tremendous has developed for Jesus. That may seem like a bold statement, but read the lyrics to Given to Fly "First he was stripped, then he was stabbed by Faceless men well f*ckers, HE STILL STANDS".
To me, this song is a lamentation--and almost an extension--of ideations / feeling generated in Given to Fly. From the first time i heard this song, the "marker in the sand" was from the Gospel (i believe John 8:6). Here, a bunch of people wanted to stone a woman (in accordance with Moses' law) for being caught as an adulterer. They told Jesus what she had done. Jesus reacted FIRST by bending and writing something the sand. To this day, NO one knows what he had wrote. He then makes the PROFOUND statement of "He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her".
No one knows the message of this marker cuz its been covered over. But again, like the profound statement made, Jesus had orginal, plain and SIMPLE truth. It made sense. Right from wrong. Easy.
But its not like that now. Us humans and our free will / sinful nature has made everything more complicated than it needs to be. The real truth has become distorted / lost by many.
What went wrong? ---a great rhetorical.
We ALL are sinners and ALL need to get our feet back on MORAL ground (although i think this song is more political in its references to who's walking the tightrope). No more killing, no more poverty, no more hatred. We are SO advanced as people yet STILL so immature. Let LOVE conquer all, dammit, is how this song makes me feel---impossible as it seems.
And then the Question "God what do you say" and statement "Im calling you out" is almost like that made by an overly frustrated person that just wants truth and love already. God can fix this, the narrator knows this and he/she doesn't want to have to wait for it any longer. And rightly so.
...And He WILL do this someday, in the second coming. Till then, we all have to learn how to love one another will a corrupt government and in an all too often injust society.
Love will find a way.
I think this song is Eddie's attempt at showing the "non-existence" of God or at least his apparent abscence in trhe affairs of man,...
It's a clever play on the "Footsteps in the Sand" poem,..
Of course I don't believe that there isn't a God, But I respect Eddie's opinion and his right to express it,...
eddie seems to come back to the idea of what he stated in "do the evolution". the song hits on all the hypocrises of man including the line "i can kill bc in God i trust". as lioneyes stated and what seems to obvious, Bush has used the bible to not only get elected, but help justify the war.
As we've also seen, the iraqis are killing in the name of islam. 9/11 (which of course iraq had NOTHING to do with) was also a religous act. its all very hypocritical yet ironic.
"how can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -john kerry
this is one of the catchiest choruses ive heard... one of the best on the new album...i tfalls behind gone and inside job
NO CODE 79: about your first statement, "I think this song is Eddie's attempt at showing the "non-existence" ". You better look up the word "conveniently".. ;)
Ps. God does not choose sides.
You don't think that my after statement "or at least his apparent abscence in the affairs of man,..." has anything to do with the idea that "God does not choose sides?"
Because that was only exactly what I was saying...
my point was that he is deffinetly not trying to show the "non-existence" of God, like you said first. (agree to the rest) I know what you mean, but you should have left that part out ;) I'm just making fuss...
PJ played this live at the Dodge Music Center in Connecticut, and it was great. It was the best show I've ever been to. I saw the Foo Fighters and Audioslave before. They sang all the fast-paced songs off the new album along with Inside Job. The show-stopper was Corduroy, the guitar solo was amazing. They didn't play many ballads, unless you count Better Man and Black. Very intense show. They played I'm Open, Sleight of Hand, and Do the Evolution in the first encore. That's when I left, not knowing that PJ was going to come out again. I missed some great songs, like Go, Alive(much to my dismay) and Yellow Ledbetter.
Its a song about how both sides of the war say that this is a "Holy War" and that "God wants us to win". Yet God says not to kill your fellow man. Its basically saying that war supporters are hypocrites
"PJ played this live at the Dodge Music Center in Connecticut, and it was great. It was the best show I've ever been to. I saw the Foo Fighters and Audioslave before. They sang all the fast-paced songs off the new album along with Inside Job. The show-stopper was Corduroy, the guitar solo was amazing. They didn't play many ballads, unless you count Better Man and Black. Very intense show. They played I'm Open, Sleight of Hand, and Do the Evolution in the first encore. That's when I left, not knowing that PJ was going to come out again. I missed some great songs, like Go, Alive(much to my dismay) and Yellow Ledbetter."
that sucks, you should have known that they wouldnt close a show with do the evolution though, idk if they have ever done tht