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Shadow walks faster than you
You don't really know what to do
Do you think that you're not alone?
You really think that you are imune to
It's gonna get that the best of you
It's gonna lift you up and let you down
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
After it takes away all that
You learn to love
Your reflection is a blur
Out of focus
But in confusion
The frames are suddenly burnt
At in the end of a roll of delusion
A ghost waiting its turn
Now I see can right through
It's a warning that nobody heard
It will teach you to love what you're afraid of
After it takes away all that
You learn to love
But you don't
Always
Have to hold to your head
Higher than your heart
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better be hoping you're not so,
Du du du
Hope you're not alone
Hm hm hum
Your,
Your echo comes back out of tune
Now you can probably get used to it
Reverb is just a room
The problem is that there's no truth
It fading way too soon
Your shadow is on the move
And maybe you should be moving too
Before it takes away all that you learned to love
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
Cause you don't
Always
Have to hold your head
Higher than your heart
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better be hoping you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not so,
Du ru ru ru ru
Hope you're not alone
Hm hm hm
Better hope
Hu hu hm
Better hope you're not alone
Hu hu hm
Hope
You don't really know what to do
Do you think that you're not alone?
You really think that you are imune to
It's gonna get that the best of you
It's gonna lift you up and let you down
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
After it takes away all that
You learn to love
Your reflection is a blur
Out of focus
But in confusion
The frames are suddenly burnt
At in the end of a roll of delusion
A ghost waiting its turn
Now I see can right through
It's a warning that nobody heard
It will teach you to love what you're afraid of
After it takes away all that
You learn to love
But you don't
Always
Have to hold to your head
Higher than your heart
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better be hoping you're not so,
Du du du
Hope you're not alone
Hm hm hum
Your,
Your echo comes back out of tune
Now you can probably get used to it
Reverb is just a room
The problem is that there's no truth
It fading way too soon
Your shadow is on the move
And maybe you should be moving too
Before it takes away all that you learned to love
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
Cause you don't
Always
Have to hold your head
Higher than your heart
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better be hoping you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not so,
Du ru ru ru ru
Hope you're not alone
Hm hm hm
Better hope
Hu hu hm
Better hope you're not alone
Hu hu hm
Hope
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First a bit of Jack Johnson trivia: Until a serious injury ended his professional surfing career, Jack was a renowned surfer (from Wikipedia: "At 17, he [Jack Johnson] became the youngest invitee to make the surfing finals at the Pipeline Masters on Oahu's north shore.").
SONG MEANINGS:
This is a song about SURFING. Much more cerebral than, say, "Surfing USA," by The Beach Boys, but still it's about surfing. Not about god, nor homosexuals (example of a bizarre earlier post), just serious advice to a less experienced surfer. Jack tries to convey the visceral and disorienting experience of surfing in beautiful music and lyrics. And what a great job!
"You don't always have to hold your head higher than your heart"
****************************************************************************
This is a reference to a surf stance/move. To catch a wave, you must locate and "paddle" to your wave, lying flat on your board, then move to a crouching position, where your head is not higher than your heart. This move is called the "pop up", the step between laying flat on the board and riding your wave. (Great pictures of this can be found all over the web.)
"You better hope you're not alone"
****************************************************************************
The disorienting and constantly shifting nature of surfing carries with it a lot of dangers, so, "You better hope you're not alone, " means exactly that: Do not surf alone; have a "surf buddy" at all times--if you hit a rip (current) for example, you could be carried out to sea. Your surf buddy could save your life.
I'm a huge fan of Jack's, too, but, folks, please take him of your pedestals. He'd probably be uncomfortable up there, don't you think?
A great surfing song. It lifts me up every time I listen to it.
Holding your head higher than your heart.
If you put something on a pedestal it will always come down crashing simply because the energy of that action is unbalanced. The religious warn against glorifying anything other than God. I replace the word GOD with GOOD so that non religious people can understand what the bible is talking about. GOOD should be everyone's GOD.
All bad that happens, if we can accept it, we are given the gift of sight to see how it was actually GOOD. It never seams as though that will be the case, but in time, if patient, you will see. In the end "it's all GOOD".
I have a saying, "That every bad feeling is psychic for a really good one is coming". At this point I know when something doesn't go my way, there is something way better down the road. It proves itself every time. But only when you let it go, give it up, accept that right now is not the perfect time to get what you want and that,....and I am always proven right, because the Universe will conjure up what you want to the Nth degree a thousand times better than you can make it happen. Even though you are actually making it happen, because if you "let it go", but have "hope", it will all end up good. Hope is where thoughts access your heart.
However for those who "hold their head higher than their heart", think too much, know too much, they will always be disappointed until they start to see it's a blessing in disguise and learn to love what you're afraid of. Because when you overcome fear, you are always rewarded with freedom from that shadow that held you back and knocked you down.
You begin to fall in love with the bad, because you know something really good is right around the corner.
The "Shadow" reference I believe is like the saying, "The biggest trouble maker in your life is staring back at you from the mirror." It's you. Life is a reflection of you. Everything that happens around you is a reflection of your thoughts and how you see the world. You do it to yourself. You are your biggest obstacle. Eventually you must give up your determined all knowing thoughts and let them go, "let it go"....to see clearly that all the times you were wrong was when you were sure you were not.
You can tell that by just reading everyone's analogies on here about the same song. They're just describing how they look at life and finding supporting words and extrapolating. It can mean what everyone thinks it means! Anything is whatever you think until someone else or you figure out differently. Like the "echo's that come back out of tune" could be a metaphor for, 'you put it out there, it doesn't sound quite right, because it isn't, so you alter it. That is how our perspective changes.' We're always trying to get better, sound better, be better.
"You think that you are immune"
We see something happen to someone else and as soon as we think the thought, "Wow, sucks to be you!" it happens to us. Maybe not the same exact thing, but definitely the feeling will happen. It only occurs when in your mind there is really an unknowing that stops you from being truly understanding and compassionate about what you just saw. Because when you do understand it stops an answer from finding you, and stops it from happening to you. That’s the only time it won't happen to you, is when you truly understand.
Otherwise...
"When it takes all that you love" (love-glorified, put on a pedestool, worshipped falsely, selfishly)
"Your reflection is a blur" because your selfish self gets upset and sees everything as bad because when you're upset it's hard to see clearly or good thoughts. At the end of not getting what you want.....you will see it was only a test of your true desire, a test....you failed because you "thought" in your "head" instead of with your heart....
These things are all "a warning that no one hears".
I don't know why he says, "you better Hope you're not alone". I do know you can only see your reflection in others. If you're alone, you'll never learn about your shadows. A shadow is the dark non enlightened selfish side of you where the light doesn't shine...that’s opposite is en'light'enment.
Thats what I think, but I'm sure I'm only projecting what I think, it's only a perspective, plz don't let yourselves get mad about being different.
now i understand that he states the word hope in the chorus and in that maybe he is saying after you are let down by your false hope not ringing true it would be nice to not be alone?
furthermore in the first stanza of the song he says the "shadow walks faster than you, the shadow he is referring to is hope - walks faster than you because hope is something we keep in front of us.
A ghost waiting its turn - a ghost meaning hope?
Now I see can right through - let down by hope and see right through meaning see the truth and reality of things
It's a warning that nobody heard - nobody heard because hope is very seductive in that nothing is easier than self deceit, for what each man wishes that he also believes to be true?
lastly i've heard ol' jack talk about the problem with hope in another song but i can't remember which its either on in between dreams or on and on.
***It will teach you to love what you�re afraid of
After it takes away all that
You learn to love***
i interpret this lyric as meaning God will take away the things that we have learned to love that are purely of this world. the idea of giving into a higher being is very scary and definitely anti-world idea but it is something you truly love after you've been "broken" or "defeated" by God.
he reiterates this same idea with slight change of lyric
***It will defeat you and then teach you to get back up***
often before someone turns their life over to God... they hit a rock bottom point that shows them the error in their human worldly ways... but God helps us back and enlightens us to His truth
The following lyrics...
***But you don�t
Always
Have to hold to your head
Higher than your heart***
... are telling us that we don't always have to hold our logical sense over our gut feeling or our emotional decision making. we often feel it is dumb to act on what our hearts tell us because it doesn't make sense in our minds.
Finally...
***You better hope you�re not alone***
is saying to those who may not believe in a higher power and that our existence is merely here on earth and by chance and there is no after life... you better hope you're not the only person thinking that
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
It's true and I'm not religious.
It seems religion, or anti-religion, is a popular theme on this thread, and I can totally see what many of you mean. For example, I can see why one would interpret the line "It will teach you to love what you're afraid of /After it takes away all that /You learn to love" would be about following God at the expense of something else you want or need. (See:CadillacKincaid)
I think many Americans feel Christianity means being a puritan and a bigot, and some rightly so, since they've only seen bad examples, but Christianity is not as mindless as people make it out to be, or want it to be. Jesus wasn't about making people "give up what they love," He was about helping people find it! Jesus taught that people try to find happiness in so many things - sex, food, wealth, whatever - that only leave you "chasing a shadow."
He taught that our hearts are bent, that we love things we shouldn't and, on our own, either reject God or use Him for our own ends. To me, it is just like, if you interpret "Hope" this way, being addicted to fame. People long for fame because, really, they long for God's applause. It makes sense rationally - if only a creator and transcendent being could truly know you inside and out, then only that being's love and support of you are truly credible. Even the people who know us best don't know us completely, and it's often the one's we're closest to that we hide from the most, out of fear of rejection.
So Christianity is about how Jesus died to save us from chasing the shadows, and showing us he's the only one who could ever love us the way we want and need.
I know I probably sound "religious-y," but seriously, if a man truly rose from the dead, I feel like we all might want to rethink how quickly we dismiss Jesus, just because He's not a popular dude. And considering the previous posts, I think it's healthy to see things from both sides. Thanks for your thoughts!
My personal conviction is that the song, especially the refrain, "You'd better hope are not alone" is really a prayer that when everything we have been striving for, our ambitions, the things that we placed all our energies and efforts in which eventually leave us, we only have ourselves and the hope or prayer is indeed there is someone to be there when we feel empty and alone.
Amen.
"...You really think that you are immune to
Its gonna get that the best of you
Its gonna lift you up and let you down
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
After it takes all that
You learn to love"
When starting out, everyone thinks they are "immune to" the things that comes from fame, pride, conceit, a lifestyle oriented around getting more fame, etc. but it gets the best of even the humblest. Fame "lifts you up and lets you down," and then "teaches you to get back up" after it has hindered your relationships with your friends and family. This is actually a similar theme to some of Jack's other songs, such as "Rodeo Clowns" and "Symbol."
Contrary to my first interpretation, I think that the line
"You don't
Always
Have to hold your head
Higher than your heart"
is actually a negative thing in the context of the song. It's the classic Hollywood line about following your heart, but it becomes negative when your heart is addicted to fame or something else (see smoldielox's interpretation) even while your head is telling you to stop.
"You better hope you're not alone" is pointing out that people can get so consumed by what they think will make them happy, that they can end up stepping on their friends to reach their goal, which of course, will leave you with no friends.
I think it's about hope. haha. go figure.
at the beginning he talks about how your shadow walks faster than you, almost like saying that the future is controlled by the past, shadow symbolizing the past.
it talks about how 'it' is gonna lift you up and let you down.
defeat you then teach you to get back up
like hope?
then it 'takes away all that you learned to love'
like your ideals? your hopes?
your reflection is a blur, out of focus, in confusion,
symbolizing maybe, that we don't know what we are becoming?
and everyone's favorite line 'you don't always have to hold your head higher than your heart' is about how sometimes, even when something doesn't seem rational, we should still hope for it and reach for it. We should think with our hearts, basically.
as for 'you'd better hope you're not alone,' I have to agree with what some of the people above me said.
I guess I think it's about hoping that we're not alone, and that there is a God.
aka, faith, which is very closely related to hope.
it was also saying how you will probably get knocked down a couple of times if you do risk it, but that is a part of the whole experience.