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Song Meaning....

Audio DamageAudio Damage Posts: 16
edited January 2004 in Words and Music...Communication
I Was Wondering If Any Of You Wanted To Start A Post Here With Your Favorite Pearl Jam Songs. Just Post Your Interpetion Of Any Pearl Jam Songs You Want. How Ever Many You Want. I Am Curious To See What Everyone Thinks Of Their Songs.
One Flew East, One Flew West
One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
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  • Audio DamageAudio Damage Posts: 16
    Okay, I Will Start ! Black .... I Think Black Is About Losing Some One That You Love !
    One Flew East, One Flew West
    One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
  • a country doctora country doctor Posts: 145
    Given to fly

    Posted this somewhere else too, but it suits to this thread too.


    I like the music but i just adore and love the lyrics of it.
    I never had an idea what the mean until i searched on Amazon and looked what people think about that song. And there was one guy who had understood the lyrics and explained that, unfortunatly in German ^^
    But i will try to translate it:


    And now the try of a translation of me:

    Given to fly is somehow the picture of a human being who changed his life extremly( sorry i could not think of a better word)
    At the begining of the song he is an outcast who can't handle with his environment and the other people, he withdraws he retires, the situation is getting worse and he runs away,
    on his escape he is illuminatied, inspired, he has got his inspiration ( i bet that's not the correct word but whatever)
    "A wave came crashing like a fist to the jaw."
    First time in his life his life got a sense.
    This insight( another time not the correct word i bet) gives him wings, he is "given to fly"
    Wow he did something right, maybe the first time in his life.
    BUT now he knows and everbody else should know who has been jamned in his daily life just like him before.
    "he wanted to share his key to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere..."
    But those who profite from this status quo, those fuckers, those faceless man don't wanna him to share his key to the locks of many many guys.
    They get and kill him.
    "but first he was stripped, and then he was stabbed by a faceless man, the fuckers he still stands..."
    But they can't stop him, his idea lives on.
    "And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky / A human being that was given to fly."

    But who the hell is that given to fly guy?
    The answers can be different, they depend on the person who asks this question.
    Some people say it's Ed himself, after having smoked a joint and going surfing now.
    Others say it's Jesus or Che or Steven Biko( who the hell is that?)
    i think that every answers is correct and wrong
    So given to fly is a song about you and me, about everybody
    BANZÄÄÄ

    When he was six, he believed that the moon overhead followed him
    By nine, he deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact, no trade-backs
    So this is what it's like to be an adult?
    If he only knew now what he knew then
  • j0enewt0nj0enewt0n Posts: 18
    Black....as audio damage says is about losing someone you love but to me what really gives it potency is that you know the person who you love is better off without you.

    The world is black without this person but you know it has to be this way so that the person you love can be happy.
    Also it is the knowledge that it is permenant...

    "Tatooed all I see...All I am....All I'll be...." All you'll be is black, dead and alone.

    Perhaps Hold On is an extension of this song....as Ed says in the Lost Dogs booklet...."If you love someone set them free....If they love you don't fuck up."
    "I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war."

    Albert Einstein
  • SmallOceansSmallOceans Posts: 3
    Black to me is about a girl losing her virginity to a guy and then the guy cheats on her. He realizes that he f-ed things up and can never have her back.
  • joshxbjoshxb Posts: 7
    Originally posted by SmallOceans
    Black to me is about a girl losing her virginity to a guy and then the guy cheats on her. He realizes that he f-ed things up and can never have her back.

    Touchy subject? lol
  • SmallOceansSmallOceans Posts: 3
    Originally posted by joshxb
    Touchy subject? lol

    No it didn't happen to me thats just what I think the song is about.
  • Audio DamageAudio Damage Posts: 16
    Thanks Every One, You Can Post More Than One Song Too !! I Think Oceans Is A Love Song About Eddie's Surf Board !!
    One Flew East, One Flew West
    One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
  • SmallOceansSmallOceans Posts: 3
    What about this? Its lyrics but I figure it will work with this thread. What do the lyrics "I would rather starve than eat your bread" mean? I'm not talking about the song just the lyrics. Is it good that you would starve for someone and let them eat your bread or is it like you would rather starve and die than eat bread from that person? Like you hate them so much that you would rather starve than eat. Does that make sense?
  • Audio DamageAudio Damage Posts: 16
    I Think It Means... Like I Would Not Take What You Could Not Give Me.
    One Flew East, One Flew West
    One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
  • Cropduster84Cropduster84 Posts: 1,283
    Yaeh, its the whole "Love someone set them free" thing to me.

    I went out with this girl for two years but we ended up breaking up and I saw her like 6 months after we broke up and she looked amazing, full of life and it made me realise Id dragged her down and that she was more beautiful without me and happier without me, too good for me. I still love her but shes better off without me and it killed me seeing her that day, but shes happy and that means alot. But now shes a "star in somebody elses sky".
    You never get over your first love.
    'The more I studied religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.' - Sir Richard Francis Burton
  • nico10nico10 Posts: 21
    Thumbing My Way.... I think it's about Beth..."Have not been home since you left long ago..." And about their divorce
  • ListlessListless Posts: 37
    I posted this before but didn't get an answer: I read somewhere that Eddy wrote "GO"to Kurt Cobain the 1st he overdosed...well it kinda does make sense...what do you think?

    I also heard that LIGHT YEARS is about fans who listened to pj only while they were "in"so now Ed's asking:"how could you be taken away"but he's still greatfull to them cause "their light made them stars"...

    and BUGS are supposedly abot press and how they invade ed's privace...

    hope to hear your opinions abot all of this
    "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
    "I may be drunk but at least I'm not insane."
    "I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink."
    "There ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk"
    -Tom Waits
  • j0enewt0nj0enewt0n Posts: 18
    I thought that Go would have been written in late 92/early 93 which would be before the first time Kurt overdosed (I think...)

    I always thought of Go as a song about not treating someone as well as you should....so they leave.

    "I swore I never took it for granted....just thought of it now"
    .......as if you never really thought they would react to the way they did.

    "Suppose I abused you...Just passing it on"
    ......Abused phsically or mentally....perhaps just throw away comments with no harm intended but in the end harm was done.

    The narrative voice then realises the 'relationship' is over the person is leaving and so begs for them to stay.....hence "Please...don't go on me."

    The comments screamed could be self-abusing "Fuck".



    Althogh the line "A fool....not a fucking God" supports the Kurt theory and I've seen Ed quoted as saying "Don't go man...if he goes I'm fucked....." in the book non-too fragile. (Possibly extracted from a Melody Maker interview after Kurts first suicide attempt but I'm not sure of the date.)
    "I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war."

    Albert Einstein
  • Pearl JamentPearl Jament Posts: 1
    Betterman...

    This is one of my favourite songs lyrically. To me, it is about a girl who's been seeing a guy and he keeps screwing up but she doesn't have the heart to break it off. She doesn't really love him, but she remains with him. She plans how she will end it, but she can't. After all, she can't really find a "better man"

    I hope I got it!
    "There is a lot to be said for not saying anything." - Jeff Ament
  • brother123brother123 Posts: 792
    Here's my interpertation on the song "Alone"

    Relationships don't always turn out great. Someones always gets hurt when the two split-up.
    <a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v44/brother123/?action=view&current=thewh0.png&quot; target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v44/brother123/thewh0.png&quot; border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
  • whoYOUarewhoYOUare Posts: 274
    i heard somewhere that Do the Evolution was based off the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. i began to read it, and from what i have read (about half so far) it seems like a possabuility

    Off He Goes can be interpreted as Eddie meeting himself (what would have been 5 years ago or so) and returning to the person he was "until quarter to ten" then he was off again

    Alive, Once and footsteps are all apart of the mamasan trilogy.
    peace
  • a country doctora country doctor Posts: 145
    of what triology?
    BANZÄÄÄ

    When he was six, he believed that the moon overhead followed him
    By nine, he deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact, no trade-backs
    So this is what it's like to be an adult?
    If he only knew now what he knew then
  • whoYOUarewhoYOUare Posts: 274
    mamasan trilogy, i may have spelt it wrong (speeling was never my strongest subject in skool) but in any event, it is supposed to follow a man from childhood to the time he is on death row. In alive his father dies when he is real young, and he grows up and looks just like him. still upset about losing her husband his mother sees this and begins to sexually abuse him. Once is about him as an adult, having no respect for women he goes out and rapes and kills a bunch of women, gets arrested and put in jail. Footsteps is about him on death row, talking to/about his mother.
    thats the quick version of what i read. they played the three songs in succession once and Eddie talked about it before they went into it.
    peace
  • SquirrelSquirrel Posts: 337
    it's on the zurich 92 boot isn't it?
  • whoYOUarewhoYOUare Posts: 274
    im not exactly sure which show it was in, i just remeber reading it i while back, so it is very possable that it was, it sounds right anyway.
    peace
  • EDDIEisMINEEDDIEisMINE Posts: 101
    Can't Keep. I once read a post somewhere and noone had much of an idea what this song was about. Your theory about ed wanting to do other things than sing, etc. makes much sense.


    Love is a tower and i think its about eds romance with his true love he says he was thrown off track but now he's back on track with her. I hope its ok to say that, not to start any talk about anything. I just think that is what and who that song is about.
    Very beautiful song. I think its the best from RA and possibly one of my favorites ever.
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Posts: 12,223
    .....sounds like a person waking up with a hangover to pretentious drivel in the newspaper ("the adjectives they all are a blurring").... as he starts to nod off he changes his mind and says "I cannot concur", perhaps to himself....then he dares himself to swallow that last tab of acid he's been saving and he goes for it.... then he goes outside on the streets of Cambridge and sees a former musician who wrote the song "Dolly Rocker", walking the road, "Sonic Floyd", with a "scar on the brain", that turns into an eyeball that is Dennis Rodman's.


    Actually, I don't know what it's about....
  • Audio DamageAudio Damage Posts: 16
    Wow, I Gotta Read That Book, Whats It About??
    One Flew East, One Flew West
    One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
  • mojo_banksmojo_banks Posts: 3
    well, i think black is about the death of a loved one and the suffering one must go through without that person....as for having a beautiful life in someone else's sky can be a suggestion of reincarnation or perhaps an after life.
    Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. JFK
  • ListlessListless Posts: 37
    Originally posted by mojo_banks
    well, i think black is about the death of a loved one and the suffering one must go through without that person....as for having a beautiful life in someone else's sky can be a suggestion of reincarnation or perhaps an after life.
    could be...but what I really wanted to say is...

    WELCOME TO THE BOARD!!!
    "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
    "I may be drunk but at least I'm not insane."
    "I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink."
    "There ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk"
    -Tom Waits
  • WernyWerny Posts: 63
    I think Evolution is about the fact that you can't stop something that's already happened, and the video reinforces that.

    Someone said Black was about a shiela losing her virginity and then the guy fucks up, that might as well be true... He's broken the glass and now he knows what he's done, he now holds that glass. And then he's scarred for life...

    What's this about the mother sexually abusing the guy in Alive? I don't even sense a nod to that idea... Wha?

    I seem to think that Even Flow is about a mentally disabled kid. He can't obey his own thoughts.

    Hail Hail is very much like my situation now to me, there's a girl that he has a very, very big fat crush on. That's all really!

    No Way I think is him asking for help, he's given up on everything else.

    Oceans I think is saying that we'll all be okay. I don't know how I got that idea, but I do. Why isn't Oceans a longer song!?
    This puke stinks like beer, and everybody's here, so come on come on come on, let's lay waste to this Century...
  • Audio DamageAudio Damage Posts: 16
    Good Question, Oceans Should Be Longer!!
    One Flew East, One Flew West
    One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest
  • j0enewt0nj0enewt0n Posts: 18
    "Oh she walks slowly into a young mans room....she says i'm ready...for you. I can't remember anything to this very day 'cept the look...the look...oh...you know where(!). Now I can't see...I just stare. I'm still alive."

    "I'm still live" meaning 'I'm the lover who is still Alive.'
    He repress's the memory's but still can't keep the most traumatic ones out of his mind... "Oh...you know where"

    I was under the impression that even flow was about poverty and homelessness (Spelling ?). Hence "Freezin' he rests his head on a pillow made of concrete..again." and "Lookin' through the paper though he never learned to read."
    "I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war."

    Albert Einstein
  • 04/20/200204/20/2002 Posts: 10
    Can i please have ppl's opinion on the meaning of Cropduster.
    I somehow think its about 9/11
    "every life is falling down"
    "seed to seedling root to stem"
    "dad, he's gone up in flames, but this aint no movie"
    Cropduster is also the name of a plane,I just think that is has someting to do with that dreadfull day.
  • EDDIEisMINEEDDIEisMINE Posts: 101
    Originally posted by 04/20/2002
    Can i please have ppl's opinion on the meaning of Cropduster.
    I somehow think its about 9/11
    "every life is falling down"
    "seed to seedling root to stem"
    "dad, he's gone up in flames, but this aint no movie"
    Cropduster is also the name of a plane,I just think that is has someting to do with that dreadfull day.

    I think your right, which would put a little more meaning behind " i thought the world" get it? the world trade buildings?
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