This is a truly brilliant song, haunting yet beautiful. Only the soundtrack version as heard in the film moves me to tears. The interspersion of the lyrics with the melancholy orchestral score gets me every time.
What annoys me is that so many people think that Art Garfunkel actually wrote it himself. Mike Batt wrote this song specifically for the ‘Fiver Beyond’ scene in Watership Down. We see in this scene that Hazel is not dead, only wounded. The Black Rabbit is leading Fiver through an almost dreamlike journey to find Hazel. We essentially get a glimpse through Fiver’s eyes as we realize how psychedelic and frightening his visions really are. Fiver struggles to make sense of them, but in the end he follows his feelings and usually ends up being right. We also see Hazels burning red eyes becoming ‘pale’, though we know he is not dead yet!
The song itself is about mortality, change, death, and many different concepts that prey on us mortal animals in our search to make sense of our lives and the world around us. The underlying theme is that of life being a journey. We don’t know where it will take us, but we know it must come to an end sometime. We essentially fear and muse on the darkness that lies beyond our destination. This is echoed within this scene, but also in the film’s end scene. We get a much deeper perspective of the lyrics when we see the elderly Hazel in his prospering warren. His bright youthful eyes have become pale and weak. He has come to the end of his journey and darkness is upon him, i.e. the black rabbit of death. We see that Hazels continuing journey in the afterlife will be ok, yet he still worries for what he will be leaving behind, only to be reassured by the spectre before him. Let’s hope we can all hope for such a good ending.
All in all, a classic ‘sad’ song for a truly classic animated film.
This is a truly brilliant song, haunting yet beautiful. Only the soundtrack version as heard in the film moves me to tears. The interspersion of the lyrics with the melancholy orchestral score gets me every time.
What annoys me is that so many people think that Art Garfunkel actually wrote it himself. Mike Batt wrote this song specifically for the ‘Fiver Beyond’ scene in Watership Down. We see in this scene that Hazel is not dead, only wounded. The Black Rabbit is leading Fiver through an almost dreamlike journey to find Hazel. We essentially get a glimpse through Fiver’s eyes as we realize how psychedelic and frightening his visions really are. Fiver struggles to make sense of them, but in the end he follows his feelings and usually ends up being right. We also see Hazels burning red eyes becoming ‘pale’, though we know he is not dead yet!
The song itself is about mortality, change, death, and many different concepts that prey on us mortal animals in our search to make sense of our lives and the world around us. The underlying theme is that of life being a journey. We don’t know where it will take us, but we know it must come to an end sometime. We essentially fear and muse on the darkness that lies beyond our destination. This is echoed within this scene, but also in the film’s end scene. We get a much deeper perspective of the lyrics when we see the elderly Hazel in his prospering warren. His bright youthful eyes have become pale and weak. He has come to the end of his journey and darkness is upon him, i.e. the black rabbit of death. We see that Hazels continuing journey in the afterlife will be ok, yet he still worries for what he will be leaving behind, only to be reassured by the spectre before him. Let’s hope we can all hope for such a good ending. All in all, a classic ‘sad’ song for a truly classic animated film.