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He stumbled into faith and thought,
God this is all there is
The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe
And all the gods in all the worlds
Began colliding on a backdrop of blue
Blue lips
Blue veins
He took a step but then felt tired
He said, I'll rest a little while
But when he tried to walk again
He wasn't a child
And all the people hurried past
Real fast and no one ever smiled
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
He stumbled into faith and thought,
God this is all there is
The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe
And no one saw and no one heard
They just followed lead
The pictures in his mind awoke
And began to breed
They started off beneath the knowledge tree
Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences
They marched along the railroad tracks
And smiled real wide for the camera lenses
They made it past the enemy lines
Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
Blue, the most human color
Blue, the most human color
Blue, the most human color
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of our planet from far, far away
God this is all there is
The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe
And all the gods in all the worlds
Began colliding on a backdrop of blue
Blue lips
Blue veins
He took a step but then felt tired
He said, I'll rest a little while
But when he tried to walk again
He wasn't a child
And all the people hurried past
Real fast and no one ever smiled
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
He stumbled into faith and thought,
God this is all there is
The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe
And no one saw and no one heard
They just followed lead
The pictures in his mind awoke
And began to breed
They started off beneath the knowledge tree
Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences
They marched along the railroad tracks
And smiled real wide for the camera lenses
They made it past the enemy lines
Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
Blue, the most human color
Blue, the most human color
Blue, the most human color
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of our planet from far, far away
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God this is all there is
The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe
And all the gods in all the worlds
Began colliding on a backdrop of blue
^ I think these lines refer to the birth of human ideas, which were created in an attempt to make the world a better place after not being pleased with the world God has given him.
He took a step but then felt tired
He said, I'll rest a little while
But when he tried to walk again
He wasn't a child
And all the people hurried past
Real fast and no one ever smiled
^ I believe these lines to be the aftermath of his thoughts and ideas. After putting them in motion, they quickly developed and changed things (which is why he goes from a child to an adult). But in this world, people seem less focused on one another, and almost robotic. This parallels to today's society in which everyone is one another's boss and must 'follow the leader'. Plus, everyone is in always in a rush.
Blue lips
Blue veins
Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away
^ Blue represents sadness, and the fact that it is so intertwined with us makes it seem that sadness is the most basic emotion for humans, being the color of our lips, veins, and world. It symbolizes what the world has been brought to through our focus on production and progress rather than each other.
He stumbled into faith and thought,
God this is all there is
The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe
And no one saw and no one heard
They just followed lead
The pictures in his mind awoke
And began to breed
^ The breeding represents what I commented on the mirroring lyrics. Everyone quickly started creating, trying to make their ideas come to life much like the 'narrator.
They started off beneath the knowledge tree
Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences
They marched along the railroad tracks
And smiled real wide for the camera lenses
They made it past the enemy lines
Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines
^ Further supports my theory and acts as a basis. The people gave up their Eden, which someone had mentioned, in exchange for this 'better' idealized society. Things like railroad tracks, fences, and camera's were invented, all at the cost of human service.
This is just my idea as to what this song is referring to, so take it as you will. I'm only fourteen so while critic is welcomed, please don't be harsh :D
You get blue lips when you lack oxygen in them (and veins are blue because they don't get oxygen), so in this song, oxygen would be faith, "blue is the color of earth from far, far away" because there is a lot more faithless people then faithful ones, so from far away, it looks blue. "Blue, the most human color" because it's what is most human now, not to have faith.
Sorry if it's worded badly.
My favorite lines of course, "Blue lips, Blue veins Blue, the color of our planet from far, far away."
Death, and life, all revolving in Earth. That's all there is in the "blue." No God, all there is, is life and death, which you can see, from far, far away.
Actually, when I first listened to this song, I thought it was "BLEW the color of our planet from far, far away" I thought it meant life and death blew away all the color and beauty from the world and there was nothing there. gaga
At some point she states "they started off beneath the knowledge tree" (this is a reference to the history of Creation according to Genesis, chapters 1-6 , culminating with the flood and destruction of everything) and goes on developing how mankind lives in hopeless condition until today, up to the point of being able to look at the splendor of the Universe and do not find God, like the astronaut that looked at Earth from far away from the window of a rocket and saw it as a pale blue dot, and did not find God out there.
To start from the knowledge tree is certain death and despair. This is something the Bible teaches: the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is death. This is where Regina is tracking from. How does she know that? Everyone knows of her Jewish background from that you can understand she would introduce her Bible knowledge in her songs.
Now, that was the part that is purely interpretative according to context.
All the other parts like the book quoted sometime here (I love that input by the way, because it totally fits with something intelligent Regina would have read ), the quote of the astronaut also very well looked at, seems legit - Regina has this amazing capacity of looking at different things and putting them together in a song full of powerful meaning.
Now, this is NOT WHAT I THINK THE SONG MEANS in the sense that I cannot say Regina wrote this thinking on these meanings. But this is my understanding of where the interpretation of this song leads us to. And it totally depends on what I belief about what is truth. It doesn't make it more truth or less truth because I believe in it and someone else doesn't, and that is the beauty of something that is true: it is not less or more truth if we do believe it or not.
It is like gravity. It is truth. Believe it or not.
And each one will face the consequences of their beliefs. If one believes gravity is truth works alongside with it, life is good. But if one tries to defy it believing it is just a tale, pain and death awaits this poor deceived person. Ironies a part, let me go back to what I had in mind to share.
Only the fruit of the tree of life leads to truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. (Still talking about the Bible here)
This generation is taught that there is no truth. And that there is no meaning to things around us.
This is the ultimate consequence of starting off beneath the knowledge tree, because when we seek knowledge out of a distorted source, a source that mix good and evil, we will end up finding out that nothing makes sense in life.
Without God, the source of truth and life, we all end up sad and hopeless, killing ourselves and killing others. Trying to find justification for life in what we do, creating our own gods.
We are blue, because we did not find God - perhaps for looking for Him in the wrong places?
And to live a life without a source of meaning is like It is like making a law without a principle behind it.
You tell people not to kill but you do not teach them life is precious and that God is the source of life and will demand the blood of that person from the hands who shed it.
People are going to kill anyway, because they are filled with the knowledge of what is good and what is evil, and choose to do evil all the time. If Cain, having the knowledge of it all still killed his brother out of jealousy, how much more homicides will we see in this generation, among those who are loosing all the sense of what is right and wrong because they are not being taught the truth of God?
Only when seek the knowledge and truth that comes from God is that we find meaning and life, and only then we will truly care for how precious ours and other people's lives are.
How come something have no meaning at all?
Look at how many long lines people write finding meaning to these lyrics?
You are right about pulling inspiration from everywhere, but not having meaning at all?
I think she either doesn't really think it through (which I doubt it deeply because Regina is a very very intelligent person) or she doesn't want to limit the possibilities of one person identifying with her songs by sharing her own meanings and stealing from others the experience of finding themselves a meaning to it.
And if she said there is a meaning but she won't share, people would not leave her alone. So it is easier to lie and say there is no meaning, or to say half a truth (which is a lie) and say there is no meaning - implying that there is no meaning she wants to talk about .
Because that would reveal her beliefs and process thoughts. And people would end up "labelling" her. Now that is much more a possibility.
Yes, I am suggesting that she lies. I better think she is lying than she being plain stupid. Which is not Regina at all.
So my point here is actually provoke you - in the best way possible - to think about this statement that is so common today "this has no meaning at all".
It is a post-modern philosophy, but a very, very depressive one. Think of the consequences of it.
What we do has no meaning, what we write has no meaning, what we choose has no meaning, and ultimately, our lives have no meaning at all.
This is where this belief leads.
See what I mean?
No wonder everyone is blue...
I would love to hear what you think about it.
Thanks for your time.
To me, this song is about Allied soldiers coming home from the front after World War II.
Verse 1:
By "faith," in this sense, it isn't literally religion which is meant, but a sense of stability and security in one's future, and this particular soldier (presumably after spending weeks longing for home) is underwhelmed by how dull everyday life seems - is this all there is?
He's also struggling with PTSD, and he has continual and vivid memories of the front. He remembers the dead and the living, and the oft-described feeling on the battlefield that the gods are present and that men's fates are out of their hands.
(Chorus)
He's struck by the physical loss of life, the bodies, the similarity between the living and the dead in all senses but one. Blue lips, blue veins.
(Verse 2)
When he left for the front he was a young man, perhaps even a teenager. Now perhaps he's injured, and even if not he's starting to notice that he's not a boy any more. He feels almost like his identity has evaporated - he's no longer one of the 'boys fighting for freedom,' he's just another man on the street.
(Chorus 2)
In the 1950's, the Space Race hasn't begun yet, but it's a concept. He looks around him at the people and feels small; he looks up and feels smaller. From far enough away, it is impossible to tell that there are people on the planet at all.
(Verse 3)
Mostly explained before - he feels like nothing's real, almost as though he's a zombie in a city of sheep. They move, they follow, and nothing fully reaches him.
Something's lost. The vivid memories of his childhood and from his time at the front make everyday life seem to fade out. Something - some knowledge of true quality of life - has been sacrificed to make cookie-cutter suburban houses and white picket fences. Everything is done for glamour and appearances, and nothing is done because it matters. What was the triumph in the war for, if all he had to come back to was a dull job making dull products for dull people? But he can't escape.
(end)
He begins to wonder what's changed, and how the world feels so different now. When there were consequences, when things mattered and friends died, there was a reason to keep going. Now he barely feels like a person at all.
Blue, the most human color.
A bit different, I know. Feel free to downvote me if you disagree, but please respond to tell me why!
"He stumbled into faith and thought,"
This line talks of a person who was born into a religion (the rest of the song hints of the said religion being none other than Christianity)
"God this is all there is"
This line indicates that he simply wasn't satisfied with the answers religion had to offer. There's a lovely irony in this line as the character of the story denies the existence of God (by saying challenging God and saying "you don't exist and this," as he looks around him, "is all there is!") and at the same time, because he was raised in such a society, instinctively talks to him as if he were a living being. Ingenious.
"The pictures in his mind arose
And began to breathe"
These two lines, in contrast to their length, tell a big story. That of which is how the character, being unsatisfied with the ways of religion, challenged it on a fundamentally logical level --> "The pictures is in his mind". The next chapter of the story is of how he voiced and made people aware of the plot-holes (for lack of a better term) of religion --> "arose". The third chapter is of how they weren't instantaneously thrown out of the window by closed-minded people but were, rather, slowly and steadily accepted by the masses --> "And began to breathe".
"And all the gods in all the worlds
Began colliding on a backdrop of blue"
Then these lines talk of how once the character's ideas spread in his local region, they also began spreading in other sectors of the world where they struck down other religions as well as the one he was raised in. I'm not sure what the backdrop of blue symbolizes, though it is obviously a symbolization of something.
"Blue lips
Blue veins"
These two lines are beautiful. In four words Regina makes the vast distinction between life and death yet she portrays them in such a light that makes them seem very similar; as both being of the same color. Trying to interpret these lines seems pointless to me as there is such a vast array of different ways in which you can interpret this.
I'm going to skip a few lines before stopping and point out how, keeping this context of Atheism in mind, the lines,
"They started off beneath the knowledge tree
Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences
They marched along the railroad tracks
And smiled real wide for the camera lenses
They made it past the enemy lines
Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines"
could be talking of how Atheism started off with a pure heart full of knowledge and understanding, but was quickly (the "quickly" part being hinted at by the speed in which Regina sings this part of the song) turned into an abomination as (humans tend to do with immaterial things) and the line, "Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines" could very well be hinting towards sheer and utter irony of that idea. Lastly my thought of how, according to the song, Atheism became an abomination is supported by the lines, "The pictures in his mind awoke, And began to breed". The thinking behind that being of how Regina correlates incest (which creates genetic abominations) with the ideas in the character's mind and how they keep breeding but only within themselves until they were no longer what they used to represent.
I'd love it if you guys attempted to write a continuation of my interpretation of the song.
Since they have started off beneath the knowledge tree (Genesis 3 in the Torah this book might be called something else - Regina is Jewish, she would know it), by eating the fruit that gave them a mixed understanding of good and evil (which actually is not pure knowledge, but a twisted kind of knowledge, a knowledge of the good and the evil things of life mixed together), they ended up very confused and depressed about the meaning of life.
They do not find God at all, not in that tree not anywhere else in their failed attempt of making out meaning for life. Not in the work of their hands, not in the invented gods, not in the denial of the existence of God.
Life has no meaning. And mankind is blue.
What do you think about that?
P.S.: Regina would not be defending Atheism because she is not, but I like the part that you say she might be somehow criticizing it. It feels to me that she is pointing out to where Atheism - and any religion/science that promised to lead people to "God" and has failed in its attempt - has lead people: depression.
Let me state before I even begin that I, myself, can be best described as agnostic. I believe that there is a "higher power" of some kind, but I do not believe it is a "god" as most seem to. I believe in evolution. I am a deist (i.e., the "Divine Watchmaker" theory), thus I do not believe in miracles (as being caused by a higher power, that is; miracles of great fortune, on the other hand, happen all the time), I do not believe the Earth was created 6000 years ago, I believe evolution ought to be a Biological Law (it's just an amazingly well-proved theory at this point... rather like the theory of gravity... but that should be changing soon!), and I don't ascribe to any of that "son of god" or "prophets" stuff (not at all). I consider myself a cynic and a realist (if you think something is true, PROVE it to me, otherwise I won't believe in it; ironically, the fact that we can't prove where everything came from--at least not in terms that I think aren't completely stupid [yes, I'm looking at you, String Theory]--is why I'm a deist). I only say this so as to give perspective to my interpretation. For example, a religious person might read my interpretation and disagree with it because they have a different outlook than I do; that's perfectly fine: such is the wonder of the human mind.
Anyway, onward!
Overall, I think we've established that the song has religious themes. What's more, I believe that this song, in particular, has mostly negative and/or neutral overtones about it. Think about her wording: "He stumbled into faith and thought / 'God, this is all there is?'" Stumbled is not exactly a word with a positive connotation; in fact, when on stumbles, it usually results in injury or near-injury and it is usually considered an unwitting or unintentional act. Also, the use of "god" here seems to be both an address as well as almost feeling like it's being used as an expletive--something frowned upon by most religions. In short, it sounds like our main character here has or was--somewhat unwilllingly--found himself within a religion. Based on later lines ("But when he tried to walk again / He wasn't a child"), I think we can safely assume that this unwilling immersion began when our character was a child.
Now then, we next come to what I view as a revelation of sorts: "The pictures in his mind arose / And began to breathe." New ideas--ideas that our main character has never permitted himself to think because they questioned the very fabric of of what he believed--began to surface; what's more, instead of dying off or being surpressed before even fully forming, these ideas TOOK SHAPE and STAYED: they "began to breathe." These ideas uprooted everything he knew and thus he began to look to other religions for answers: "And all the gods in all the worlds / Began colliding on a backdrop of blue" And blue, as many have pointed out, is a color that can mean both death ("Blue lips") and life ("Blue veins") and thus, because it represents these two dichotomous ideas at once, can be seen as symbolizing as our main character's struggle to explain life and death and where little people like us fit in that equation. Basically, our character turned from his previous religion and began searching others for the answers to questions that he felt weren't adequately explained.
Moving on: "He took a step but then felt tired / He said, 'I'll rest a little while' / But when he tried to walk again / He wasn't a child." Alright, I feel that there's a lot of meaning buried here. The "step" that our character takes before feeling tired could be seen as meaning that he actually took a step in a direction in terms of changing his views--of finding his "truth"--but it was very difficult for him, so he stopped trying to change and accepted his current state; that is, he accepted that he didn't know the answers and carried on with his life because it was easier. To me, this is symbolic of the later teenage years and ~20s or so in everyone's life, because--at that point--most people are focusing on preparing themselves for a career or job of some sort and not really wrestling with huge moral dilemmas. But then, when he starts questioning things again and attempting to once again define his "truth," he suddenly realizes that he's not as young as he used to be (which would only further fuel his desire and path to
"truth"--since now he's walking and taking more than a single step)
"And all the people hurried past / Real fast and no one ever smiled" basically says to me that, at this point, he's going through this struggle on his own--again, more negative imagery. To make matters worse, in a manner of speaking, our character has yet another revelation: just how small and utterly insignificant he is--how utterly small and insignificant our entire PLANET is--in the vast scheme of things. I think Regina uses "blue" ("Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away") in this sense to symbolize that we are just like our planet: an infinitely small speck that only exists for the briefest fraction of a moment while floating, practically lose, on a single mote of dust in the vast sky of the cosmos.
I take "And no one saw and no one heard / They just followed lead / The pictures in his mind awoke / And began to breed" to mean that, as he's going through this revelation once more, he's still doing so alone: everyone else around him simply follows what's being, essentially, spoon-fed them and not supporting him. Once more, the line "They just followed lead" evokes imagery of people blindly following something--I believe someone referred to these persons as "sheeple"?--which, to most of us nowadays seems like a rather repugnant idea; so, once again, we find negative imagery associated with a "they" which doesn't require a large leap of logic to mean "the religious". Anyway, and then, as our main character is being ignored or shunned (either a neutral or negative response) by this group, his thoughts are multiplying: becoming more numerous and filling him with even more doubt--more questions left unanswered.
Now, I will admit that I'm having trouble with this next section. Here it is for reference: "They started off beneath the knowledge tree / Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences / They marched along the railroad tracks / And smiled real wide for the camera lenses / They made it past the enemy lines / Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines." Obviously, the "knowledge tree" is a reference to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in several religious texts (for the record, it's not "biblical" because it's in Genesis and--unless I'm mistaken--Genesis itself is in some form or another present in the Bible as well as the Torah... not sure about the Qur'an, but I wouldn't be surprised) further reinforcing the idea that this song's main theme is religion. Chopping it down for a picket fence seems a pretty obvious metaphor--to me--to mean doing away with religion as a cost for further advancement (though whether personal or societal, I can't say, as I'll explain in a moment), while the images of proceeding beside railroad tracks and smiling for cameras seem to indicate an incessant march forward coupled with putting on a positive image. And the final two lines ("They made it past the enemy lines / Just to become enslaved in the assembly lines") seem to indicate to me that our subjects here are trying to escape their current situations and seek refuge behind new, better-looking ideologies only to find that these ideologies are just as unpleasant/unclear as the ones they just left. HOWEVER, I can't for the LIFE of me figure out who the "they" here is supposed to be. In a previous line, I'd said it seemed to mean persons of religious beliefs, but in this case I don't know if that's the case. It could mean someone acting on a personal level, it could mean a group of people acting on a societal level: I don't know. Either way, this verse is very clearly chock-a-block FULL of delicious metaphor that can be interpreted in about twenty keysmashing-illion ways. I chose to see the "they" on a societal level most of the time, but sometimes I inexplicably find myself switching to an individual level. So, yeah: sorry, but you're going to have to choose your poison for this particular section.
AND FINALLY, we come to the last unique line of this song: "Blue, the most human color." I believe this is, quite simply--and as many have pointed out--a throwback to our main character's question of what is his place in life and death and all the places between. This line gives us our answer to that question: it's the human place. As humans, that's where we belong. We live. We die. It's not complicated. There are no hidden meanings, no trick questions: at the end of the day, we have lived our life and we will all die. There is no escaping it. Living and dying are the most utterly human things in existence, and, no matter how you try to dress it up or call it by a different name, that's all that there is to it. In the end, we're all equal: we will all be reduced back to our basic elements and become part of the Earth again, with our molecules no longer arranged in that one VERY PARTICULAR arrangement that facilitates this thing we call life.
And that's about it. Over all, I think it's a song chronicling one man's struggle with his faith and his eventual realization that no one faith has all the answers because all the faiths are trying to put a complicated spin on something that is, in the end, very simple.
And in case I didn't make this clear throughout: This is my OPINION. I in no way believe that I've gotten everything 100% (or ever 0.00001%) correct, because, truthfully, I don't think there's every a "right" answer to what a song means; it means whatever it means to you.
They started off beneath the knowledge tree
Then they chopped it down to make white picket fences
Rather than chopping down the tree of knowledge symoblizing doing away with religion, what if it's actually symbolizing the opposite? Adam and Eve only received that knowledge by eating the fruit of the tree (and it wasn't knowledge God wanted them to have) -- chopping it down could symbolize destroying the possibility of receiving knowledge or truth at all. Thus chopping down the tree to build a picket fence might mean their avoiding searching for meaning (i.e. swallowing what they've always been spoon fed about religion) in order to maintain their "perfect" lives.
Following that reasoning that whole section would be talking about "the religious" -- with talk of enemy lines and assembly lines being religious wars and the automation of living your life but never stopping to question what it's really about.
Just my two cents.