Have you ever read a book and just completely submerged yourself in the author's thoughts? You find yourself daydreaming that you were there... some of the best daydreams I've ever had are in this way. It is the stories that mean so much to us, but writers such as Sylvia Plath give us their beautifully ugly thoughts and (usually tragic) life journeys.... and so this is more common with this writing style. It is not so much the work produced that makes us obsess over artists as it is the artists themselves.
I think Ryan was describing a daydream that he indulges in when reading her work. When I am reading a Kerouac book, I spend half of my time reading, and half of my time in pointless daydreams of me just walking through battered streets with him drunk and wasted and careless and in love with feeling alive (yet so close to dead)... What it would have been like....sigh.... it is a weird feeling that you get from these daydreams... you would give almost anything to actually experience them... though in most cases it leaves you empty and frustrated and sad because you can't. With Sylvia, I think many avid readers want to ease her pain, or feel it with her.... what I wouldn't give to just sit with her on an afternoon in such bleakness... Sometimes the best way to know we are alive is to feel pain.
And so..... I think the meaning of this song is foreign to most people, but as your thinking develops, and you read a book or a thousand, and you realize that all of life is tragic, then you will begin to understand this. There is something beautiful in a person who is sad or who has realized the sadness in life... and so maybe this song is about him wanting a sylvia plath, a rock-bottom feeler of life in its true form... and maybe because those people are untouchable.... you can never truly ease the pain in that person, and you can never feel exactly what they are feeling.... but life would be so damned and horrible......and beautiful.
I think as a writer or songwriter the meaning that other people get from your words is more important than what it meant to you. This site is great for this reason.... I think what the song means to you is just as important as what it meant to the artist originally. Songs are a great way to resurrect different feelings from different times in your life.
Some of you may realize that when you really start thinking, you will become an outsider.... and very alone at times.
Hope you all find the tragedy in life, though it may be a better life to live completely oblivious to this.
Have you ever read a book and just completely submerged yourself in the author's thoughts? You find yourself daydreaming that you were there... some of the best daydreams I've ever had are in this way. It is the stories that mean so much to us, but writers such as Sylvia Plath give us their beautifully ugly thoughts and (usually tragic) life journeys.... and so this is more common with this writing style. It is not so much the work produced that makes us obsess over artists as it is the artists themselves.
I think Ryan was describing a daydream that he indulges in when reading her work. When I am reading a Kerouac book, I spend half of my time reading, and half of my time in pointless daydreams of me just walking through battered streets with him drunk and wasted and careless and in love with feeling alive (yet so close to dead)... What it would have been like....sigh.... it is a weird feeling that you get from these daydreams... you would give almost anything to actually experience them... though in most cases it leaves you empty and frustrated and sad because you can't. With Sylvia, I think many avid readers want to ease her pain, or feel it with her.... what I wouldn't give to just sit with her on an afternoon in such bleakness... Sometimes the best way to know we are alive is to feel pain.
And so..... I think the meaning of this song is foreign to most people, but as your thinking develops, and you read a book or a thousand, and you realize that all of life is tragic, then you will begin to understand this. There is something beautiful in a person who is sad or who has realized the sadness in life... and so maybe this song is about him wanting a sylvia plath, a rock-bottom feeler of life in its true form... and maybe because those people are untouchable.... you can never truly ease the pain in that person, and you can never feel exactly what they are feeling.... but life would be so damned and horrible......and beautiful. I think as a writer or songwriter the meaning that other people get from your words is more important than what it meant to you. This site is great for this reason.... I think what the song means to you is just as important as what it meant to the artist originally. Songs are a great way to resurrect different feelings from different times in your life.
Some of you may realize that when you really start thinking, you will become an outsider.... and very alone at times.
Hope you all find the tragedy in life, though it may be a better life to live completely oblivious to this.