i disagree that this is just "a fun song." berman always cares about his lyrics, no matter how trivial they may seem and his words often convey multiple meanings. we see the lyrics "time is a game only children play well" followed soon by "my youth for a bell." so, how do children keep track of time? they have little conception of it. they often find symbols and events that allow them to conceptualize time without truly knowing what it is. for instance, when i was little, my parents would tell me that an episode of "He-man" had just passed rather than say it's been a half-hour.
In the instance of schools, we can't just tell children to come to class at a certain time--we must employ bells to remind them ( i think berman is alluding to this when he says, "a youth for a bell").
so, as children we don't worry about time--we have other people worry about it for us; it becomes a game, just like many other pursuits in our lives. as adults, time is no longer a game. for men, it's a constraint to the immediately pleasurable desires we seek--often sex. for women, time is no longer a game either. as they age, they often lose their good looks and their opportunity to procreate. ultimately i think what berman is saying is that children have an innocent conception of time-far removed from how adults view it; if adults imagined time in this way there would be fewer constraints in our lives. we can't see time as merely a "game"--time always has repercussions.
i disagree that this is just "a fun song." berman always cares about his lyrics, no matter how trivial they may seem and his words often convey multiple meanings. we see the lyrics "time is a game only children play well" followed soon by "my youth for a bell." so, how do children keep track of time? they have little conception of it. they often find symbols and events that allow them to conceptualize time without truly knowing what it is. for instance, when i was little, my parents would tell me that an episode of "He-man" had just passed rather than say it's been a half-hour.
In the instance of schools, we can't just tell children to come to class at a certain time--we must employ bells to remind them ( i think berman is alluding to this when he says, "a youth for a bell").
so, as children we don't worry about time--we have other people worry about it for us; it becomes a game, just like many other pursuits in our lives. as adults, time is no longer a game. for men, it's a constraint to the immediately pleasurable desires we seek--often sex. for women, time is no longer a game either. as they age, they often lose their good looks and their opportunity to procreate. ultimately i think what berman is saying is that children have an innocent conception of time-far removed from how adults view it; if adults imagined time in this way there would be fewer constraints in our lives. we can't see time as merely a "game"--time always has repercussions.