Lyrics for My Body Is A Cage as interpreted by mad_world87

My Body Is A Cage Lyrics
My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key

My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key

I'm standing on the stage
Of fear and self-doubt
It's a hollow play
But they'll clap anyway

My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key

Standing next to me
My mind holds the key

I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head

I'm living in an age
Whose name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow

My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key

Standing next to me
My mind holds the key

My body is a . . .

My body is a cage
We take what we're given
Just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven

I'm living in an age
Still turning in the night
But when I get to the doorway
There's no one in sight

I'm living in an age
Realizing I'm dancing
With the one I love
But my mind holds the key

You're still next to me
My mind holds the key
Set my spirit free
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
Set my body free
Woo!
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
Oh, oh
Oh, oh

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Sgt. Pepper
11-25-2008

Rated 0 
Maybe that's just because I'm somewhat depressed and I really relate to this song.

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brandon tautou
12-12-2008

Rated -3 
I think this song is about a little baby that was born an old man that doesn't actually age but instead, ages backwards. And even though he's say, seven years of age, he looks like he's 81.And as an "81" year old he falls in love with a girl who's about seven years old normally. And as he continues to decrease in age she continues to increase, but they do however, meet somewhere in the middle, age-wise. And it is magnificent. I don't know, that's just my interpretation.

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4 Replies
the second flood
12-14-2008

Rated 0 
so cool

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careless99x
12-23-2008

Rated 0 
The song i believe is about the singer girlfriend or wife dying and his desire to end his own life to be with her. because he refers to his body as a cage, and his mind having a key, he means that he cant bring himself to end his own life despite his desire for it. later in the song he describes the world that he lives in in a very negative way to show his disdain for living, but fear of death keeps him going

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Phantom_causes
01-12-2009

Rated 0 
The lyrics from this portion are wrong:

Standing next to me
My mind holds the key

My body is a . . .

...

I'm living in an age
Still turning in the night
But when I get to the doorway
There's no one in sight

I'm living in an age
Realizing I'm dancing
With the one I love
But my mind holds the key

You're still next to me
My mind holds the key

Correct lyrics (these are taken directly from the album booklet):
You're standing next to me.
My mind holds the key.
My body is a...

...

I'm living in an age that
screams my name at night,
But when I get to the doorway
there's no one in sight

My body is a cage that
keeps me from dancing
with the one I love,
but my mind holds the key.

You're standing next to me.
My mind still holds the key.

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fere
01-22-2009

Rated 0 
I think this song is about the power of the mind, like Buddha says: "what we think, we become".

And so we recognize that we have a problem, that our fear and our pessimist thoughts are the ones who truly owns us, the ones who keeps us in cages, and keeps us from "dancing with the one we love", do what we love the most or trying new things...

hence, "my mind holds the key"

also I agree with porcelainStars.

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red maggy
01-23-2009

Rated 0 
I think its about the fear that lives in all of us and holds us down....down.....down from the spirit within.

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laughinganyway
03-07-2009

Rated +1 
I think of this song as an expression of the limitation of possibilities that one goes through in life, especially because I've been feeling this way lately. There is so much that he (or me) wants to accomplish, but mortality blocks that, which sometimes leads to a lot of frustration. So even though his "mind holds the keys" for all these things that he wants (the one he loves) to become reality, it's not possible to do everything.

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Hungryforalynchin
03-24-2009

Rated 0 
Such despair...its all true ....*sigh*

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Hungryforalynchin
03-24-2009

Rated 0 
Life is a bitter joke to the narrator, He wants to lay out how he sees it now that the scales have been stripped ruthlessly from his eyes: We haven't evolved, we aren't anything still but frightened monkies in a zoo who take whats given from our keepers because we just dunno anything better,can't imagine it being different, slaves in putrid, disintegrating shells in insane dog-eat-dog systems touted as the pinnacle of modern achievement when in fact are no more sandcastles before the tide. Life is nothing but a tutorial in grief & ashes and we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise with hollow actions & idiot laughter, full of sound & fury signifying nothing.

The one he loves isn't a girl, but himself- forever fragmented & alone in a world of the walking dead

Set me free

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1 Reply
Hungryforalynchin
03-24-2009

Rated 0 
no more *than* sandcastles

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whateverprime
04-08-2009

Rated +2 
I'd always thought this was about being gay and in love with someone who was straight.

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1 Reply
Explosionsinthemind
04-26-2009

Rated 0 
Parts of this song remind me of George Orwell's 1984, particularly

I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head

Kind of like blackwhite and newspeak



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1 Reply
sonofeat
05-03-2009

Rated 0 
I do remember reading an interview somewhere where one of the Butlers (I think) said something about how it was based around a particular passage in teh Bible- maybe Isaiah? I'm not certain, though.

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blake2112
06-20-2009

Rated 0 
If you guys are familiar with T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" than it might be easy to see the similarity between the two, how Prufrock and the character in this song are both the one's holding themselves back, whether voluntarily or not; or conscious of it or not.
Idk I just thought that was interesting.

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aldc84
06-21-2009

Rated +2 
The lyrics sound like they are written by someone who has social anxiety which is a disorder that can pevent people from expressing their real emotion even if they want to because of fear of being judged and extreme low self esteem. The line that really supports this is 'my mind is the key' and 'standing on the stage of fear and self doubt'.

Other parts of the lyrics that suggest this are also 'Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head' people who suffer from social anxiety are often very quiet and reserved because it is social interaction and attention from others that sets off their anxieties, so even though they might be passionate, cultured people their mental illness has made their 'language' or ability to communiate 'dead'.

The title of the song also suggest his/her anxieites are set off from their awkwardness or low confidence in the way they look or physically behave which is preventing them from being themselves and acting as they naturally would.


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aldc84
06-21-2009

Rated +1 
another line that supports the idea that he is singing about social anxiety is 'Though the fear keeps me moving, Still my heart beats so slow' the 'fear' is the anxiety which results in a rapid heart beat and panic but as he goes onto say 'my heart beats so slow' he plays on the contradiction of the disorder which is that when people have their social anxieties although their heart might be beating rapidly they are often dishertened by the fact that the fear is preventing them from doing the things they want to do.

Social anxiety is a disorder that most people who have it, will develop it in their teens and without treatment or recognising the disorder will have for several years. I really think that he is singing about how he has had this disorder and knows that he can not be close to the one he loves because of his anxieities, a lot of the lines are more literal then you

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aldc84
06-21-2009

Rated 0 
....think, look up social anxiety and it will make so much sense

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MrGrieves
08-08-2009

Rated 0 
Everyone's body is a cage.

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Gairloch
08-16-2009

Rated 0 
Since this is the last song on an album where the theme seems to be a cynical look at modern religion (or something along those lines), I'd say Poogles interpretation 1 and 3 are essentially correct. This song wraps up his feelings on religion and seems to be saying that religion is a personal thing. At least that's what makes sense to me given the theme of the album and location of the song.

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misctimetraveler
10-03-2009

Rated 0 
He is depressed and can't enjoy the love of his life because he can't escape his head

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hazelbackstop
10-18-2009

Rated 0 
I think it's about addiction. He's separated from other people by his need to fulfill his body's craving, for cigarettes or drugs or whatever.

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maxwellolive
10-18-2009

Rated 0 
i feel kinda stupid thinking the meaning of this directly relates to what im trying to look into at this moment but ill just say it anyways.

The song is about prejudices in the world, and how they affect individuals and how they're promoted

"My body is a cage
That keeps me from dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key"

there's always certain racist prejudice about how people look all over the world, and if you don't fulfill what people want, your body can be "a cage" meaning it doesn't really have to do with if you love someone it has to do with the culture and whether or not people accept how you look.
but then there's always people who get around that many many times and that's what i think the "my mind holds the key" part is talking about.

"I'm standing on the stage
Of fear and self-doubt
It's a hollow play
But they'll clap anyway"

If you're a person who is looked down upon, you have to do an act for other people and there's "fear and self-doubt" that you'll actually be able to fulfill it

and its a hollow play, many of the things we do in life are without real meaning, and we forget why we do them, but people clap anyway because its a tradition. We do things because our parents did them and the culture tells us to do them.

"I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head"

War(imperialism), racism, prejudice, hate of gays, sex and nudity seen as bad, taking away money from education, violent prosecution of illegal immigrants(cali haha). people still promoting this even though they know its wrong.

languages are dead is dead for many people, especially in america. those who are the most violent and most ruthless through imperialism have larger language bases.

and these things are filling our heads, we think twice, maybe we should be killing people, maybe we should be hating gays, maybe we should be racist.

"I'm living in an age
Whose name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow"

not knowing the "name" is a representation not knowing the culture. not really understanding why it is happening.
We are manipulated through fears, we keep doing the things we do in fear of what will happen. but the heart beating slowly is saying its done calmly and almost without notice


"We take what we're given
Just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven"

we take what we're given, we take the education and the culture of what whoever is in power
and people forget the horrible things they've done to become powerful, and they believe they should be forgiven just because they've forgotten.

"I'm living in an age
Still turning in the night
But when I get to the doorway
There's no one in sight"

Having nightmares at night(tossing and turning)
doorway is a dream interpretation, and no one is sight meaning, there's no answers to these problems and there's no one to help with these problems


"set my spirit free"

pleading for all of this madness to stop

set my spirit free from these oppressions and ideologies that people enforce violently and non-violently



that's what i got out of this song
maybe i went off too far on some interpretations though :(



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prayingmantis
12-15-2009

Rated 0 
i also think this song is about a handicapt person, who wants to live and do something with his life.
but alas, he cannot. for he is trapped in a wheelchair, while his life disintigrates and his loved ones slowly drift away.

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2 Replies
koole
01-12-2010

Rated +1 
Religion is a recurring theme throughout the album. Butler makes some pretty bold-faced commentary on Neon Bible when it comes to our culture, particularly the religious aspect of it (eg. "Antichrist Television Blues"). But throughout the album he seems to be pointing the finger people and what they have done with religion, not God himself. I see him coming to terms with God in this song, God being the one he's "dancing" with. It's a prayer. He's asking God to set his body and spirit free.

In the middle of the song, he directs his thoughts to the world, his "age."

"We take what we're given
Just because you've forgotten that don't mean you're forgiven."

Chris-n talks about this a few comments down. People have forgotten about the spiritual, are too caught up in the material, the "body." But that doesn't mean we're off the hook.

All in all a great song. A great way to end a great album. Grim, but with a glimmer of hope at the end. Maybe "No Cars Go" would have been a better finish, looking on to the after-life. I think is a better song, though. It hits home more heavily.

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