This song is largely autobiographical of its writer/performer Peter Allen, and has great cultural significance in Australia which it does not seem to have outside of Australia.
At the obvious level the song is autobiographical. Peter Allen's grandfather was the admired and respected George Woolnough. Peter's own father was a failed man who suicided, "had need of a gun". Peter himself "changed his last name" to Allen, and married "a girl with an interesting face", a not particularly kind reference to his by then estranged wife Liza Minelli.
At a less individual level, the song, I believe, has great human resonance by its description of time as an unstoppable, inoxerable force that eventually lays the truth out for all to see, pretty or otherwise. "Time is a traveler" is the most frequently repeated chorus line in the song, which for me evokes both the human image of horsemen moving forward, but also the universal hand of time conquering all. Time is also a "tale teller" and a "meddler".
It is a meddler in that it doesn't always cooperate to help our lives turn out the way we had planned, which Peter would have known applied to his father who killed himself. It is also arguable that time likewise "meddled" in Peter's own life, when he subsequently died prematurely of AIDS after contracting HIV from a homosexual partner.
Time is also a "tale teller" - it ultimately mocks our fronts, masks and pretences, and eventually lays open the hard truth to judgment. Time has told the tale of George Woolnough's decency and success, just as it has told the tale of the uncontrolled, unreliable and failed life of Peter's father. Peter would have also known that it would tell the tale of his life, and indeed details of his sexuality - and of obviously his premature death - only emerged after the song was written.
Time has also been a "tale teller" by showing that being the son of a good, stable man is no guarantee that a child ("son with a gun") will not go along the wrong track, and by showing that a life of personal tragedy (Peter's lifestyle and prematurely dying of AIDS) is a very common outcome of being raised in a house with a mentally ill, alcoholic, suicidal father.
In the end, Peter is write in saying that given the power of time, as humans with our lives all we can do is "make a bet". We can make the wisest possible decision at any point in time to provide ourselves the best chances - but the reality is that we are still only "making a bet" in that even the decision we foresaw as the wisest could nonetheless end in complete disaster when the hand of time moves and reveals the final outcome.
This song is largely autobiographical of its writer/performer Peter Allen, and has great cultural significance in Australia which it does not seem to have outside of Australia.
At the obvious level the song is autobiographical. Peter Allen's grandfather was the admired and respected George Woolnough. Peter's own father was a failed man who suicided, "had need of a gun". Peter himself "changed his last name" to Allen, and married "a girl with an interesting face", a not particularly kind reference to his by then estranged wife Liza Minelli.
At a less individual level, the song, I believe, has great human resonance by its description of time as an unstoppable, inoxerable force that eventually lays the truth out for all to see, pretty or otherwise. "Time is a traveler" is the most frequently repeated chorus line in the song, which for me evokes both the human image of horsemen moving forward, but also the universal hand of time conquering all. Time is also a "tale teller" and a "meddler".
It is a meddler in that it doesn't always cooperate to help our lives turn out the way we had planned, which Peter would have known applied to his father who killed himself. It is also arguable that time likewise "meddled" in Peter's own life, when he subsequently died prematurely of AIDS after contracting HIV from a homosexual partner.
Time is also a "tale teller" - it ultimately mocks our fronts, masks and pretences, and eventually lays open the hard truth to judgment. Time has told the tale of George Woolnough's decency and success, just as it has told the tale of the uncontrolled, unreliable and failed life of Peter's father. Peter would have also known that it would tell the tale of his life, and indeed details of his sexuality - and of obviously his premature death - only emerged after the song was written.
Time has also been a "tale teller" by showing that being the son of a good, stable man is no guarantee that a child ("son with a gun") will not go along the wrong track, and by showing that a life of personal tragedy (Peter's lifestyle and prematurely dying of AIDS) is a very common outcome of being raised in a house with a mentally ill, alcoholic, suicidal father.
In the end, Peter is write in saying that given the power of time, as humans with our lives all we can do is "make a bet". We can make the wisest possible decision at any point in time to provide ourselves the best chances - but the reality is that we are still only "making a bet" in that even the decision we foresaw as the wisest could nonetheless end in complete disaster when the hand of time moves and reveals the final outcome.