I know that the accepted idea is that the song is about the '98 power outage...but just a few thoughts I have while listening to it.
Neighbors all were shouting that they found the light
("We found the light!")
Shadows jumping all over my walls
Some of them big, some of them small
I feel the song overall is about the banality of life in many areas of the civilized world. How the "power" has gone out in our lives, and with it, our ambition and drive to better ourselves and find meaning. This lyric in particular seems to refer to the idea that most of the "Neighborhood" realizes this and are looking for something to hold on to. In times of hopelessness and darkness, a lot of people turn to religion. Now I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with that, but a lot of the time, it's used as a cop-out, a carrot on a stick, a blanket of ignorance so they don't have to really deal with the reality of their life. I can't help but read this part as some of the "Neighbors" saying that they found meaning again in religion...and when the "singer" sees it, it's nothing but shadows reflecting against a wall.
The people have known nothing but darkness with brief moments of shadow reflected on the walls. Because they need to find meaning in their banal existence, they attribute something deeper to the shadows.
I know that the accepted idea is that the song is about the '98 power outage...but just a few thoughts I have while listening to it.
I feel the song overall is about the banality of life in many areas of the civilized world. How the "power" has gone out in our lives, and with it, our ambition and drive to better ourselves and find meaning. This lyric in particular seems to refer to the idea that most of the "Neighborhood" realizes this and are looking for something to hold on to. In times of hopelessness and darkness, a lot of people turn to religion. Now I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with that, but a lot of the time, it's used as a cop-out, a carrot on a stick, a blanket of ignorance so they don't have to really deal with the reality of their life. I can't help but read this part as some of the "Neighbors" saying that they found meaning again in religion...and when the "singer" sees it, it's nothing but shadows reflecting against a wall.
This kind of reminds me Plato's Allegory of the Cave (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave).
The people have known nothing but darkness with brief moments of shadow reflected on the walls. Because they need to find meaning in their banal existence, they attribute something deeper to the shadows.