Wow, what a beautiful song. I read it in a similar way to most other comments but I think there's a massive significance to the line 'I lost my mind long ago, down that yellow brick road' (as another commenter said previously) and 'just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down', which is pure poetry to me.
The way I interpret these metaphors is how dominant cultural narratives are fed into our psyches 'long ago' - when we are small children, the stories that keep us addicted to the endless pursuit for pleasure, which, as beautiful and romantic as they are, keep us separated from who we are (the way we feel) and actually bind us to the suffering of obsession (a bit like what Marx said about religion), having 'lost our minds' because addictions are destructive (it's in the definition) and the beauty of being high is an illusion.
I think in the second verse the line is:
'Took a train to the river/ where I dove right in'
Which refers to how we easily dive right in to the stories we are sold (because it's easy, as well as being a massive natural instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain). He personifies 'Hollywood romance' as the 'skinny dippin' girl', an end that will never be obtained (living happily ever after/permenance...), and true enough she breaks his heart, because the perfect life of pleasure that is being sold is a ruthless delusion.
Amazing!
Wow, what a beautiful song. I read it in a similar way to most other comments but I think there's a massive significance to the line 'I lost my mind long ago, down that yellow brick road' (as another commenter said previously) and 'just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down', which is pure poetry to me.
The way I interpret these metaphors is how dominant cultural narratives are fed into our psyches 'long ago' - when we are small children, the stories that keep us addicted to the endless pursuit for pleasure, which, as beautiful and romantic as they are, keep us separated from who we are (the way we feel) and actually bind us to the suffering of obsession (a bit like what Marx said about religion), having 'lost our minds' because addictions are destructive (it's in the definition) and the beauty of being high is an illusion.
I think in the second verse the line is: 'Took a train to the river/ where I dove right in' Which refers to how we easily dive right in to the stories we are sold (because it's easy, as well as being a massive natural instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain). He personifies 'Hollywood romance' as the 'skinny dippin' girl', an end that will never be obtained (living happily ever after/permenance...), and true enough she breaks his heart, because the perfect life of pleasure that is being sold is a ruthless delusion. Amazing!