Wow, some good discussion over this, one of if not the best Dan tunes ever.
This tune's meaning is LARGE. Most of you I think are right, but there's more. Highly spiritual.
The 'expanding man' is a man who has had a realization and has resolved to expand himself - in all ways. Many paths in life teach asceticism - depriving yourself of luxuries or indulgences to reach enlightnment. The protagonist has the insight, as many nowadays are (we're approaching global enlightenment folks, try as Bush might to thwart it) that the very fact of being alive is a luxury and an indulgence. He used to look through the glass at 'gamblers, wild ramblers' but that's all in the past. He now understands that THEY are the ones who are ALIVE. Truly alive. It's not about sin, it's about worshipping life - with wine, women, and song. God wants you to get nekkid, get loaded, and get expanded.
The last verse shows us that this whole tune is the reflection of the man after the transformation. He's giving us a memoir to show us that the transformation seems painful, damaging, wrong, all that. But - the judgement of the 'court' (the rest of unenlightened humanity) means nothing to him. He cried when he wrote this song - meaning yes, there is tragedy even among those who live life to the fullest, but that is also part of the path and must be accepted. "Sue him if he plays too long" - go ahead and do what you will to people like him, it won't matter.
This brother is free - he'll be what he wants to be. The causality goes both ways between those two facts. Be what you want to be, and you will be free.
And when you find others who are free, you can share with them sensations which stagger the mind, but only with those of your kind - the enlightened. A whole new world opens up to those who open themselves. And it's indescribable to the rest.
Listen to the Dan, get your freak on, live forever.
Wow, some good discussion over this, one of if not the best Dan tunes ever.
This tune's meaning is LARGE. Most of you I think are right, but there's more. Highly spiritual.
The 'expanding man' is a man who has had a realization and has resolved to expand himself - in all ways. Many paths in life teach asceticism - depriving yourself of luxuries or indulgences to reach enlightnment. The protagonist has the insight, as many nowadays are (we're approaching global enlightenment folks, try as Bush might to thwart it) that the very fact of being alive is a luxury and an indulgence. He used to look through the glass at 'gamblers, wild ramblers' but that's all in the past. He now understands that THEY are the ones who are ALIVE. Truly alive. It's not about sin, it's about worshipping life - with wine, women, and song. God wants you to get nekkid, get loaded, and get expanded.
The last verse shows us that this whole tune is the reflection of the man after the transformation. He's giving us a memoir to show us that the transformation seems painful, damaging, wrong, all that. But - the judgement of the 'court' (the rest of unenlightened humanity) means nothing to him. He cried when he wrote this song - meaning yes, there is tragedy even among those who live life to the fullest, but that is also part of the path and must be accepted. "Sue him if he plays too long" - go ahead and do what you will to people like him, it won't matter.
This brother is free - he'll be what he wants to be. The causality goes both ways between those two facts. Be what you want to be, and you will be free.
And when you find others who are free, you can share with them sensations which stagger the mind, but only with those of your kind - the enlightened. A whole new world opens up to those who open themselves. And it's indescribable to the rest.
Listen to the Dan, get your freak on, live forever.
Nuf said.