We Own the Sky

I wrote an essay for my music class on this song last year and this is a part of the essay where i interpreted the lyrics:

The lyrics of “We Own The Sky” are very cryptic. The album’s title is “Saturdays=Youth” and the artist himself is a big fan of John Hughes movies such as “Sixteen Candles” and “Pretty in Pink” so drawing from this, I concluded that the song is about teenagers. It seems as if the teenagers in general are not afraid to dream big with “Each shade of blue…kept in [their] eyes,” even if they fail, represented by the weather which “Keep[s] blowing and lightening.” Teenagers continue to dream because they have a sense of invincibility, “because [they] own the sky.” The next part of “Secrets from the winds/Burnt stars crying” represents how easily teenagers can be inspired or influenced to do something new. The “winds” and “stars” are each romanticized with a personifying quality. It links the way teenagers romanticize situations, not realizing what is completely realistic or unrealistic. However, as quick as teenagers get an idea, they can abandon it even quicker — “We kill what we build.” The juxtaposition of “soft and “cruel” exemplify how young minds can suddenly adjust to the abandonment of an idea once so firmly set. “Can’t we change out minds?” is a question to all the adults who cannot remember back to their youth and understand why sudden droppings of aspirations can occur out of the blue without needing reason, only to move on to new aspirations. When it is night -“So many moons here” - time for sleeping, which comes dreaming - “Lost wings” — the “wings” represent dreams that are from one’s rarely used subconscious. The subconscious surfaces lost thoughts, giving meaning to conscious thoughts, hence “floating me.” The last few lyrics indicate that something is “coming… from the sky…from the wind.” These words, in addition to the song building up, exaggerates the unearthly power that teenagers think they wield, the essence of invincibility. It is as if there is something rising within which feels right, natural, and calming. This moment in the song seems to assert that this is the moment a teenager has been waiting for all throughout life. It may be a painting of how falling in love for the very first time feels. Though the whole song is electronic, there is not a feeling is superficiality.

within this song lies what we have all felt before, our teenaged years of invincible sentiment.

It sounds sort of apocalyptic. I get the sense that it's explaining the destruction of the Earth, among other thing. "We kill what we build," and "Burnt stars crying," perhaps meaning the end is what is coming.

The evolution of consciousness, or simply, our awareness of the interconnectivity and inseparability of every piece of nature, our world, and the greater universe. We are all one. (Quantum physics is on its way to forming a cohesive explanatory model of this). I see this notion reflected in many of my favorite songs, in sometimes more obscure ways.

"Each shade of blue Is kept in our eyes Keep blowing and lightning Because we own the sky"

The sky as a metaphor for our higher selves/soul/universal oneness, whatever you'd like to call it. I think these lines mean that we're all "pieces" of the same larger puzzle of creation (not in a religious sense but a spiritual one), which we perceive as divisible into our individual entities. However, just as we can see the sky, feel the winds blowing, we're equally a part of it. Observer as well as equal, collective participants.

"Soft soft or cruel Can't we change our minds? We kill what we build Because we own the sky"

Can't we change from this current cruel, dualistic society (much of the world, not just the western one, is governed by seemingly dichotomous political entities that ultimate serve the same greedy goals), stop building/growing things just to destroy them (i.e. people, nature, resources, etc.). We own it after all, as in, EACH of us, not just TPTB.

"Secrets from the winds Burnt stars crying So many moons here Lost wings floating"

Secrets from the winds could mean, well, hints of what's about to change for us here on Planet Earth from advanced ancient civilizations, science, philosophical wisdom (i.e. Buddhism, Taoism, etc). Burnt stars crying = represents each one of us. A star dies when it runs out of fuel... so being poetic, a burnt star could be a star in which that process is accelerated (analogous to the rape and pillage of the earth and the effects it will inevitably have on human populations). We're crying, the state of the world causes deep pain within all of us. "Moon" as a verb means to "behave or move in a listless and aimless manner." See a pattern? We're all devastated by the atrocities around us, the separation we feel from the oneness of our origin, and we've lost our ability to connect to each other - "lost wings floating."

"It's coming! What's coming now? It's coming It's coming now..."

The change is upon us... I believe when we die, our energy gets transferred. Ego death for sure, but our "spirit" (that is, the un-severable connection between all energy) gets dispersed and "lives" on. Eventually though, I feel humans will be able to transcend the separation between matter and energy (as perceived by us in our human form, a side effect our limited senses) that we experience currently, to a higher evolved conscious state of connectedness, unity, and love.

Just my complicated esoteric opinion, anyway :) Simply put, the dawn of a new age is upon us, one of love, compassion, and peace.

Personally, I interpret the first verse as talking about how we've been here since the dawn of man, we've seen the Earth age and it is now approaching the end.

For example,

"Each shade of blue is kept in our eyes."

Many times, as the sun begins to set, because of the fading illumination of the sun on this side of the planet, the world begins to take on a constantly deepening shade of blue. Morning to noon to evening to night is often used to metaphorically connect to aging of our lives. I believe it's a metaphor for the beginning of the earth, the adolescence stage, the adult stage, and the ending stage. And how we've seen every sun set, every time the sky turns into a darker and darker shade of blue, someone has seen it, and it's burned in our memories through our eyes.

This is however, just my interpretation and I could be way off. :)

makes me think about something that we created getting out of our control. though im not sure why. maybe the title suggests our arrogance, thinking that we can own the sky. im probably wrong. awesome song either way.

post apocalyptic is a good guess. makes me think of the onset of nuclear fallout . . or given the nature and feel of this album it could be about an unseen change in a relationship. here you are flying high feeling in control of the world. then this event happens that changes you and you slowly start to realize what things are really going to be like now, and how different things will be. these thoughts seem to enfold you and just slowly cover you as if they came out of no wheres . . thats what im getting out of this.

It reminds me of Philip K. Dick's "Eye in the sky"

I love it.

"Each shade of blue Is kept in our eyes Keep blowing and lighting Because we own the sky"

My interpretation here is someone talking about how we are always reminded of bad, sad (blue) memories thru things we see (kept in our eyes).

The second part seems like the person is brushing off the bad by saying we own one of the most vast things in the universe and just brush it off, "keep blowing and lighting" (like blowing out candles and lighting them again next year).

This is one of my favorites from Saturdays = Youth. Check out the video for "We Own The Sky" if you haven't, I think it makes the song a little more accessible: youtube.com/watch

people doing needless things like being cruel or pretending to be "soft soft" one day itll all just crash on u