new interpretation of Black
Aic
Posts: 9
Hey guys, I'm writing an assignment on Pearl Jam and during my analysis of Black I came up with a different view on the lyrics.
As many have noticed the first line "Sheets of empty Canvas, untuched sheets of clay" refers to art objects, so I figured that the lyrics might actually be about an artist. With the line "Laid spread out before me, as her body once did) could put the woman into the object of a poser (not sure if that's the right word, but what I mean is a person the artist paints). "All of five horizons revolved around her soul, as the earth to the sun" again something related to creativity; the five horizons could be a synonym for the five sences (taste, sight, feel, sound and smell) and the revolving around her soul could stand for the artists attempt to reproduce what he sences in every dimension possible (either the third dimensions of clay, the 2nd dimension of painting or the abstract).
The folowing lines would then tell how this artist has fallen in love with the woman he has been using as a model and the lines talking about painting the pictures black could be litteral and mean that he tries to kill his desperate need for this woman by painting all the pictures he has of her black.
Anyway, I just came up with this so please don't fry me, I just thought it would be great to get some other views on this since I havent read a simmilar sight on the lyrics. Cheers everyone!
As many have noticed the first line "Sheets of empty Canvas, untuched sheets of clay" refers to art objects, so I figured that the lyrics might actually be about an artist. With the line "Laid spread out before me, as her body once did) could put the woman into the object of a poser (not sure if that's the right word, but what I mean is a person the artist paints). "All of five horizons revolved around her soul, as the earth to the sun" again something related to creativity; the five horizons could be a synonym for the five sences (taste, sight, feel, sound and smell) and the revolving around her soul could stand for the artists attempt to reproduce what he sences in every dimension possible (either the third dimensions of clay, the 2nd dimension of painting or the abstract).
The folowing lines would then tell how this artist has fallen in love with the woman he has been using as a model and the lines talking about painting the pictures black could be litteral and mean that he tries to kill his desperate need for this woman by painting all the pictures he has of her black.
Anyway, I just came up with this so please don't fry me, I just thought it would be great to get some other views on this since I havent read a simmilar sight on the lyrics. Cheers everyone!
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Comments
-Garden
They're "untouched sheets of clay, were laid spread out before me as her body once did" means he's staring at his now-made bed remembering how his gf used to lay there and the sheets molded (like clay) to the shape of her body.
"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
PAUSE
in somebody elses sky..."
as a result of that pause, i always take the word "star" to mean celebrity, when this is clearly not the case. so annoying.
That's not as bad as this. Every time I hear the line "into your garden of stone" in Garden, I imagine Stone Gossard sitting in front of a little vegetable patch holding his guitar.
Empty bed, untouched sheets.
I believe this song is about a guy remembering a lost love. I do believe Ed said this was about a girl who died.
Hm that's what I always imagine... and that's very weird!!!
I don't believe that he's singing about a dead girl
''I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,
I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, why can't it be mine''
It sounds to me like she left him, and she doesn't want to come back to him
And now the questions...
a.) Should I kill them? Become their friend? Ouch, bad joke.
b.) Why are the narrator's hands "bitter?" Why bitter, as opposed to just being upset? The narrator's fault? Something out of their control?
c.) Why is there a specific mention of children? And why does the narrator sear? Is the narrator alluding to a possible pregnancy as being the reason for the break-up?
d.) Is it possible that the "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life" lines are not about the girl at all but about a child given up for adoption?
Just some food for thought.
To me this is talking about new sexual discovery using an analogy of an artist approaching a blank canvas/freshclay. Equally it may be referring to the sheets on a bed with no woman there.
I think the beauty of these lyrics is that they mean many things at once.
I think the laughter of the children at play just represents happiness in general, and provides a strong contrast to the "blackness" of the narrators thoughts.
"All I taught her was everything", might mean that he taught her everything she new, implying virginity, or that he held back nothing, implying total commmitment.
Your artist analogy has a lot in it, just needs a bit more work
I often think of Patrick Kavanagh's lyric, On Raglan Road, here:
On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.
......
Similar ideas: clay = mortality/earthiness/sexuality/material for art.
The subject of Black, like the subject of On Raglan Road, is a male artist/writer/speaker realising that, though he has endeavoured to construct his lover as a female idyll, she, as a genuinely strong woman, has rebelled, and shattered his masculinist Pygmalion myth (by escaping from his clutches). Both lyrics express a male artist/writer, failing to control a more emotionally mature, unobtainable female. In Kavanagh's case, the speaker of the lyric is chasing after a woman who is to an extent "cultivated" by his art but still autonomous and independent. In the case of Black, the tension arises in that the sheets of clay belong to the speaker's artist girlfriend. She will always control the means of her own self-representation: she is a superior artist to him, and part of his loss is his frustrated realisation of the limits of his creative vision in controlling this strong woman.
Both songs portray a male protagonist's attempts to control his escaped beloved, through imaginative construction of her in narrative, and through a certain self-pitying elegy that suggests a prior intimacy. However, On Raglan Road hints, through exaggerated rhyme and metre, at the facile and mawkish nature of such laments, at the expense of the speaker's voice and to the strength of the lyric as a piece of clever psychological observation. I don't know if Black has that level of self awareness and development.
Well I was just going by what Ed said.......he did write the song
"Oh how quick the sun can drop away" What happens when the sun drops away???..it is night and BLACK..thus the theme of blackness and sadness..just like when his sun(who the world revolved around dropped away or left) And all he is left with is the picture all been washed and black
"All the love gone bad turned my world to Black" THIS is why the song is called BLACK................................
His sun has left..the girl who lighted his world..and now she will be a star in someone elses sky..the metaphor is that she was his sun and now she is gone and his world is black. all 5 horizons revolved around the sun..she was everything to his world. this is why black will always be my favorite..fucking incredible heartfelt lyrics.
I agree with it all and your last two lines. Brilliant song with the most beautiful, passionate lyrics I know. Just reading the lyrics is a treat but then when you see live versions and just hear the passion (especially at Pink Pop '92 on Youtube) it's breathtaking.
---
1. Ten
2. Vs.
3. Pearl Jam
4. Binaural
5. No Code
6. Riot Act
7. Yield
8. Vitalogy
Pearl Jam Song Rankings
---
1. Black
2. Rearviewmirror
3. Light Years
4. Given to Fly
5. Severed Hand
EXCELLENT!
Note. Washed in black- Referring to a photograph that has been developed but nothing is there? A relationship that was "taken" but never "developed"
untouched sheets of clay I think is a seperate sentence...not relating to "sheets of empty canvas"
I see it as unmolded clay as an inexperienced woman or himself as an unexperienced man.
...at that time i was dating a person who I loved as much as humanly possible, we were together for two years before he left me for somebody else and broke my heart,(we were wery young and knew noting about life)...at that piont my life became a "black" song...so when I hear the song some of that feelings and memories come back, but I' m not sad about it, because I've had a true love in my life,I felt it, and I would not want to change that...
I am with somebody else now, and i'm werry happy, but when I listen to "black" I drift away, memories come back, and I'm happy about it because that is just mine and nobody can take that away from me..
I always thought that this song is about two people who are destined for each other, who belong together, but they broke up for some stupid reasons...and then they realise that they will never find such love again, but it is too late and they can't be together again..and the pain is so big that it will remain in their hearts for the rest of their lives, as a reminder of a love they did not appreciate enough
To the one I'll never please
dreamer in my dream
we got the guns
i love you,but im..............callin out.........callin out
it is obvious that it's a love song about break up
I think that colour BLACK represents his life that has no meaning now when the person he loved is gone
for me all of PJ's songs have deep meaning which is beyond words,especially this one...and that everybody can add their own meaning to the song based on their life experience
To the one I'll never please
http://www.myspace.com/cockeyedoptimus
I think that's an awesome interpretation of Black - The idea of Artist's infatuation with sitter seems entirely congruent with what we know to be true of great artists and their models - Freud, Rodin, Vettriano to name a few shining examples of the transcendence of the basic artist/model relationships...
I hadn't really explored the ideas you outline before...
You've really got me thinking about it now....Thanks....;)
H
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Butt-head: This guy makes faces like Eddie Vedder.
Beavis: No, Eddie Vedder makes faces like this guy.
Butt-head: I heard these guys, like, came first and Pearl Jam ripped them off.
Beavis: No, Pearl Jam came first.
Butt-head: Well, they both suck.
el oscuro me mantiene
cuando yo te vi
en la lluvia me prometiste tu sangre
Estrella de la mañana
Samael te persigo a ti
y si me quedo sin alas
ademas me muero por ti