everyone has come up with many thoughtful (and divergent) interpretations of the first verse. when people want to forget a traumatic period of their life, burning photos--or cutting certain faces/people out of the photos--are common images for trying to rewrite one's memories, one's "history". i think elliot is trying to decontruct that imagery.
"cut this picture into you and me" is paradoxical. with this sort of image, cutting usually means to remove. but what does he mean, by following this with "into you and me"? typically you cut "apart", not "into" (a photo, anyway)
he suggests that by cutting, he wants is to reintegrate something (not separate it). similarly: if burning is destructive, what would it mean to "burn it backwards"? perhaps he wants to reverse the process of memories being lost or revised. if he fails in this effort, the past will be viewed through the lens of hate, not love.
sometimes we cling to memories even if they're painful, because losing them would be worse.
just the other day i was thinking about how we forget things, but it's a process beyond conscious control. you can never choose which memories you might want to forget.
"spare some sunshine" could be a reference to heroin, given the context. "old man winter's in the air": opiates tend make you feel warm, which would be important to someone who may wind up living on the street. also, if you're already addicted--and you're sick, because you can't get your fix--you feel so intensely cold inside that nothing seems to help.
probably not about alcohol. elliot refers to these words being spoken by a "kid". late-stage alcoholics tend to be older. heroin addicts are often younger (because it takes less time to hit bottom, and because many junkies don't live very long). OTOH the phrase "brother can you spare" is deliberately old-fashioned, and elliot may have intended to evoke images of depression-era hoboes.
i don't mean to be judgemental; i'm an addict. though i have a lot of health problems & therefore get my drugs from the medical system...a blessing, because it's the junkie lifestyle that kills you, not the drugs
i never thought of "fully loaded" referring to a gun; i assumed it meant drunk or high. but the ambiguity may be intentional.
everyone has come up with many thoughtful (and divergent) interpretations of the first verse. when people want to forget a traumatic period of their life, burning photos--or cutting certain faces/people out of the photos--are common images for trying to rewrite one's memories, one's "history". i think elliot is trying to decontruct that imagery.
"cut this picture into you and me" is paradoxical. with this sort of image, cutting usually means to remove. but what does he mean, by following this with "into you and me"? typically you cut "apart", not "into" (a photo, anyway)
he suggests that by cutting, he wants is to reintegrate something (not separate it). similarly: if burning is destructive, what would it mean to "burn it backwards"? perhaps he wants to reverse the process of memories being lost or revised. if he fails in this effort, the past will be viewed through the lens of hate, not love.
sometimes we cling to memories even if they're painful, because losing them would be worse.
just the other day i was thinking about how we forget things, but it's a process beyond conscious control. you can never choose which memories you might want to forget.
"spare some sunshine" could be a reference to heroin, given the context. "old man winter's in the air": opiates tend make you feel warm, which would be important to someone who may wind up living on the street. also, if you're already addicted--and you're sick, because you can't get your fix--you feel so intensely cold inside that nothing seems to help.
probably not about alcohol. elliot refers to these words being spoken by a "kid". late-stage alcoholics tend to be older. heroin addicts are often younger (because it takes less time to hit bottom, and because many junkies don't live very long). OTOH the phrase "brother can you spare" is deliberately old-fashioned, and elliot may have intended to evoke images of depression-era hoboes.
i don't mean to be judgemental; i'm an addict. though i have a lot of health problems & therefore get my drugs from the medical system...a blessing, because it's the junkie lifestyle that kills you, not the drugs
i never thought of "fully loaded" referring to a gun; i assumed it meant drunk or high. but the ambiguity may be intentional.