This song is about never giving up on your dreams, or at the very least what a sad, pointless, circuitous life you might live if you do. Australia is a very remote place to most people in the world, a place I think many of us would be overwhelmed to be lost in. Similarly a life without dreams, or at the very least, without difficult, maybe unrealistic goals is a more real, visceral plain we wouldn’t want to be stuck on.
Born to multiply signifies pointless existence, life as merely a way of preservation, of keeping the human race alive. Once you realize this, you want more out of life and become born to gaze into night skies, meaning you dig deeper into life’s mysteries, even though you might not find anything. At the very least you are aware of the mask of merely being alive to reproduce, and you’re doing something about it by searching the skies and thinking and as a result forming dreams and creative, expressive plans.
Saturday represents your dreams. We always want more Saturdays, we always want more freedom, more time for ourselves. And our dreams, goals, allow us to be distracted in the present, through school or work or even family and religion at times cuz we know that what we are working for is that glimmer at the end, that light that will make all of our efforts seem relevant and worthwhile. Which is why we sell ourselves (to people willing to “Buy your life’s time”) through work. Mercer advises us to ” keep your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters” - your dream (here the metaphor is a burning candle) alive and in the air while you work (fetters are foot restraints, so he’s saying that while you’re tied down by your job, you still have your dream glowing brightly).
Here’s where the trouble comes. You cant keep up your dreams and live the happy, normal existence that is expected of you by your family and friends. They all expect you to be a lawyer, so what are they going to say when you express desire to be a songwriter? Or a dancer? Or a painter or artist or freelance writer?? Whatever your dream is, it’s completely incompatible with what they want and expect out of you. You cant have both, it’s either one or the other. I think Mercer is saying you should go with your dreams and not what’s expected of you or you’ll only live to regret it. The lyric “your shape on the dance floor will have me thinking such filth I'll gouge my eyes” means you’re seeing someone beautiful, someone free and wild that might tempt you to settle down and start a civilized, normal life, (and in doing so trick you into thinking you can have both) but you quickly gouge out your eyes, forget what you’ve seen, because that’s just a challenge you need to overcome. Because if you settle down, “You’ll be damned to be one of us faced with the dodo’s conundrum” (of being a flightless bird), and every time you try to fly away to go realize your dreams, nothing will happen.
“Will you be pulled from the ocean?” means will you be rescued from settling down, but find that it’s just a minute too late and you can no longer dream, or maybe be “changed by a potion” that’ll find you “a handsome young mate to love” and thus you’ll be settled with nothing to dream about. You don’t want that., cuz if that’s what you choose, then “You’ll be damned to pining through the window panes” and you’d “trade your life for any ordinary joe’s,” realizing what they have is so much more valuable and important than what you have and it’s not something you want to lose.
The last paragraph is the character (Mercer? Probably not) thinking over the fact that he chose to settle in what’s expected instead of following his dreams and now he’s faced with the “android’s conundrum” of living but not being alive (How you can really be alive if you have no dreams??? They’re what keep us moving from one day to the next) and he cant even cry about it, all he does is sit there “watching the lantern dim” and being “starved of oxygen,” meaning growing older and more upset and feeling more trapped like he’s running out of oxygen until he cant take in any more and just jumps out the window, leaves his stifling life of routine to follow his dreams.
this is just my opinion
This song is about never giving up on your dreams, or at the very least what a sad, pointless, circuitous life you might live if you do. Australia is a very remote place to most people in the world, a place I think many of us would be overwhelmed to be lost in. Similarly a life without dreams, or at the very least, without difficult, maybe unrealistic goals is a more real, visceral plain we wouldn’t want to be stuck on.
Born to multiply signifies pointless existence, life as merely a way of preservation, of keeping the human race alive. Once you realize this, you want more out of life and become born to gaze into night skies, meaning you dig deeper into life’s mysteries, even though you might not find anything. At the very least you are aware of the mask of merely being alive to reproduce, and you’re doing something about it by searching the skies and thinking and as a result forming dreams and creative, expressive plans.
Saturday represents your dreams. We always want more Saturdays, we always want more freedom, more time for ourselves. And our dreams, goals, allow us to be distracted in the present, through school or work or even family and religion at times cuz we know that what we are working for is that glimmer at the end, that light that will make all of our efforts seem relevant and worthwhile. Which is why we sell ourselves (to people willing to “Buy your life’s time”) through work. Mercer advises us to ” keep your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters” - your dream (here the metaphor is a burning candle) alive and in the air while you work (fetters are foot restraints, so he’s saying that while you’re tied down by your job, you still have your dream glowing brightly).
Here’s where the trouble comes. You cant keep up your dreams and live the happy, normal existence that is expected of you by your family and friends. They all expect you to be a lawyer, so what are they going to say when you express desire to be a songwriter? Or a dancer? Or a painter or artist or freelance writer?? Whatever your dream is, it’s completely incompatible with what they want and expect out of you. You cant have both, it’s either one or the other. I think Mercer is saying you should go with your dreams and not what’s expected of you or you’ll only live to regret it. The lyric “your shape on the dance floor will have me thinking such filth I'll gouge my eyes” means you’re seeing someone beautiful, someone free and wild that might tempt you to settle down and start a civilized, normal life, (and in doing so trick you into thinking you can have both) but you quickly gouge out your eyes, forget what you’ve seen, because that’s just a challenge you need to overcome. Because if you settle down, “You’ll be damned to be one of us faced with the dodo’s conundrum” (of being a flightless bird), and every time you try to fly away to go realize your dreams, nothing will happen.
“Will you be pulled from the ocean?” means will you be rescued from settling down, but find that it’s just a minute too late and you can no longer dream, or maybe be “changed by a potion” that’ll find you “a handsome young mate to love” and thus you’ll be settled with nothing to dream about. You don’t want that., cuz if that’s what you choose, then “You’ll be damned to pining through the window panes” and you’d “trade your life for any ordinary joe’s,” realizing what they have is so much more valuable and important than what you have and it’s not something you want to lose.
The last paragraph is the character (Mercer? Probably not) thinking over the fact that he chose to settle in what’s expected instead of following his dreams and now he’s faced with the “android’s conundrum” of living but not being alive (How you can really be alive if you have no dreams??? They’re what keep us moving from one day to the next) and he cant even cry about it, all he does is sit there “watching the lantern dim” and being “starved of oxygen,” meaning growing older and more upset and feeling more trapped like he’s running out of oxygen until he cant take in any more and just jumps out the window, leaves his stifling life of routine to follow his dreams.