Marker in the Sand.
Cropduster49
Posts: 102
What do you think this is about? I'm thinking something to do with religion.
But i'm bad at this, so this is all i got.
But i'm bad at this, so this is all i got.
YOU CAN'T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN.
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enjoy............
There is a marker,... No one sees it cause the sand
Has covered over,... All the messages it kept
Misunderstanding,... What original truth was
And out expanding,... In a faith, but not in love
What went wrong?
Walking tightrope high,... Over moral ground
Seeing visions of,............. Falling up somehow
Do come down
With the living, Let,..... What is living love
So unforgiving, yet,.... Needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say?
Those undecided,........ Needn't have faith to be free
And those misguided, There was a plan for them to be
Now you got both sides Claiming killing in Gods name
But God is nowhere,..... To be found, conveniently
What goes on?
Walking tightrope high,... Over moral ground
Seeing visions of,............. Before you burn them down
Do come round
With a living, let,...... What is living love
So unforgiving, yet... Needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say? What do you say?
There is a sickness,...... A sickness coming over me
Like watching freedom,. Being sucked straight out to sea
And the solution?,........ Well, from me far would let it be
But the delusion,.......... Is feeling dangerous to me
What goes wrong?
Walking tightrope high,... Over moral ground
Seeing visions of,............. Falling up somehow
Do come down
With a living, let,...... What is living love
So unforgiving, yet... Needing forgiveness first
God, what do you say? What do you say?
Calling out,......... Calling out.
Calling out,......... I'm calling you out.
Thanks for posting the lyrics, makes this type of discussion MuCh eaiser
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
Dusseldorf 21/06/07, Manchester 17/08/09, London 18/08/09, LA 06/10/09, LA 07/10/09.
Ain't gonna be any middle anymore.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
You know, I've been so interested in the Inquisition over the past few years, and I don't know if there are parallels to just this time period, or maybe I'm more aware of how people are abused with the concept of a religion, or maybe there really are parallels.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
1) From a non believer you can say that if there was a God why is the world in the status that it is today? Poverty, murder, disease.....etc
2) From a believer of a higher power, your frustrated/tired with the world, and you just want it all to change. Therefore you call out God to resolve the struggle.....
That is exactly what I get from the song. And I think when we are talking about somebody who is probably agnostic then it is actually saying both thing equally. Personally, I love the concept of saying...
So unforgiving, yet... Needing forgiveness first.
God, what do you say? What do you say?
The idea that God needs forgiveness too... well that would be blasphemy to some people, but it's interesting in the conext of this song.
What do you guys think about that?
Deni
Peace and Love
Deni
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
10/12/2000 KS
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well, for me it's a kind of proof that there is nothing like a god
god, what do you say?
"I don't wanna think, I wanna feel"
"Go then, there are other worlds than these!" - Jake Chambers
09/02/2005 Vancouver
09/23/2006 Berlin
06/21/2007 Düsseldorf
I feel you are totally off...what is the meaning of DELUSION!?!?!? Look it up. Any religious groups/people remind you of being "unforgiving", yet needing forgiveness first?! I can name a few...to mistake this song as religious fodder is a mistake.
Plus, it's:
walking tightropes high....walk the bridges...before you burn them down...do come round" on the second chorus.
"My lips are shakin'....
"And Love,...Wish the world would go again with Love
One can't seem to have enough."
www.myspace.com/jenlovespearljam
First off, I got the lyrics from the Pearl Jam website, so they have the lyrics wrong.
Secondly, I have no idea what exact "delusion" (false belief) Ed is speaking of--only he knows that. We can only interpret what we think it means. It could be the "freedom being sucked straight out to sea" , the government's false beliefs, the world's false beliefs, etc. etc.
All I know is that the world is still in alot of trouble and needs God's help. Someone already posted that Ed did say the song was about asking God for guidance. When he's saying "do come down" , it reminds me of when God would intervine in the Bible and actually talk to the people. To me, its like saying to God, "look, we've got a huge mess going on down here---people killing each other --each saying the other's God is the right one--can you just come down and straighten this out please?". ---my two cents anyway.
those who are the "holier than thou" types look down upon others because they appear to be faithful (because the preach but dont practice what they preach (hippocrits), but the holier than thou are worse and have less love in their hearts.
those misguided are people who may have faith may not but understand love and with this love will be free..
got to go
-Eddie Vedder
6/24/06 Cincinatti, Ohio
6/14/08 Manchester, Tennessee
The verses are angry and expository, while the choruses are plaintive and poetic.
Like I think the Marker itself is the bible, rosetta stone kind of imagery. This thing that held a truth for a people, then was covered over by the sand so now no one remembers what it was really all about. Then the message spreads, but only in faith, not in love, by which I think he means that the letter of the law became more important than the spirit of it. People just using it for power, not for the love it was intended for.
This is pretty much how I feel about the story of Jesus. I don't believe in him as the son of god but rather as this beautiful messenger of peace and justice. But the Christian religion now is a huge bastardization of those messages.
So anyway, then with the "Do come down with the living, let what is living love," means to me, while it's speaking TO God, it's really speaking to us, saying, "Listen people, God's an abstract. God's up in wherever, but we're all here. Let's have God here by loving each other and being good to each other."
"Unforgiving yet needing forgiveness first" reminds me of this John Prine song, "Fish and Whistle," where he says, "Father forgive us for what we must do... you forgive us and we'll forgive you." It's a lighthearted song, but I always take that line pretty seriously.
The "Calling out" part really gets me every time. Either chills or tears. No joke. It's like a hymn and I really feel it. The other day I was mowing the lawn with my iPod headphones on... and the sun was shining and all the dogwoods are blooming, and I looked around and just cried out that ending part...
Okay, I'm going WAYYYY off topic. But this is by far my favorite song on this album.
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6/24/08 -- NY, NY
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6/28/08 -- Mansfield, MA
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5/21/10 -- NY, NY
10/25/13 -- Hartford, CT
Yeah I agree, this song has probably the strongest message of any song off the entire album.
-Eddie Vedder
6/24/06 Cincinatti, Ohio
6/14/08 Manchester, Tennessee
i agree with everything you said, but lets try not to compare pj with tool. Tool doesnt deserve it. How many times has Tool said love in any of their songs?
10/12/2000 KS
06/13/2003 IA
06/15/2003 ND
06/16/2003 Mn
06/21/2003 WI
10/05/2004 MO
10/08/2004 FL
09/08/2005 MB
09/09/2005 ON
05/17/2006 IL
05/19/2006 MI
07/02/2006 CO
08/05/2007 Lolla
06/14/2008 B'roo
Kill Fascists.... or at least make them realize what they are.
7/9/03 -- NY, NY
5/13/06 -- Hartford, CT
6/3/06 -- E. Rutherford, NJ
6/24/08 -- NY, NY
6/27/08 -- Hartford, CT
6/28/08 -- Mansfield, MA
10/30/09 -- Philadelphia, PA
5/15/10 -- Hartford, CT
5/21/10 -- NY, NY
10/25/13 -- Hartford, CT
10/12/2000 KS
06/13/2003 IA
06/15/2003 ND
06/16/2003 Mn
06/21/2003 WI
10/05/2004 MO
10/08/2004 FL
09/08/2005 MB
09/09/2005 ON
05/17/2006 IL
05/19/2006 MI
07/02/2006 CO
08/05/2007 Lolla
06/14/2008 B'roo
Kill Fascists.... or at least make them realize what they are.
I like what you've sumized--we have to do it ourselves--no matter what beliefs or lack of beliefs we have. Maybe he's calling us ALL out?!?
"My lips are shakin'....
"And Love,...Wish the world would go again with Love
One can't seem to have enough."
www.myspace.com/jenlovespearljam
Since the first time I've heard, it seemed like Eddie's thinking about the war and the role of religion on it, and in our world nowadays.
The first verses: "There is a marker... no one sees it cause the sand / Has covered over... All the messages it kept / Misunderstanding... What original truth was / And out expanding... In faith, but not in love" ; seems to me that they summarize this basic idea.
The sand makes me think about Christianism (but I don't know if there are other religious meanings to sand, if there are, I hope you excuse me for ignoring them), because it's said in the Bible that Jesus Christ used to write in the sand and that He left nothing registered in parchment (or whatever they used at that time). His message was transmitted by others, and so, as the years go by, might have been changed and importants aspects of it may have been lost. So, as someone that grew up in a Christian home and knows this aspect of the transmission of His message, it made me relate this to Christianism.
To expand in faith, but not in love, might mean that the religions (specially Islamism) are expanding their domains and the number of believers in the world, but we have to reason about what kind of message are they carrying on. Both religions - Christianism and Islamism - have their roots in the middle East, the muslins also believe in Jesus as a prophet, the message is very similar when it comes to the moral and love... but we see a dangerous fundamentalism arising. There are people killing others and dying because they were taught to believe they would be praising Alah (God) and their Prophet Mohamed by doing that (note: not all the muslins do that! We should not confuse their religion w/ terrorism!). And on the other hand, we have our Christian-Jewish Civilization killing thousands in wars, although we all share the precept that we should not kill .
For a long time now, people use faith and religion to make war or to obtain power ("Now you got both sides Claiming killing in God's name"). Those are dangerous times... We have fundamendalism in both sides: once we think governments would prohibit the Darwinism and the Evolution in schools to please religious groups that support them, it's really extraordinary (and not in the good way). I have watched a documentary in tv some time ago that showed some people in US who doens't let their kids go to school so they wouldn't learn about the scientific theory of the origin of life. What if those people gain the power to rule a nation (not necessarily the US, but some smaller country or Brazil, that's a country with a significative number of protestants?). In the name of that faith they would probably do things as worse as those the Catolic Church has promoted during the years that the Inquisition was in force, just to preserve their power. And this freedom he sings ("Like watching freedom,. Being sucked straight out to sea") , is the freedom that every single person loses once their government becomes too powerful and gives up democracy, or once a religion becomes too strong and violates the liberty of the others (to believe or to disbelieve).
Every single time in that song that Eddie asks God : "what do you say?", I think he wants us to make those questions too. It's up to us to find those answers and to look into the problem. And most of all, Eddie's inquiring about human nature, because every human has his own beliefs and knows what he would live or die for, what's worth in life. And that's huge deal: to find out what's worth without being led by others into that kind of madness. It's about finding out the truth behind it all, the real message.
Well, that's what I think about this song...
actually, i think it's more an indictment of people who use religion as an excuse to make war. hence the line "god, i'm calling you out". "what do you say, god? if you're out there, doesn't this shit- done in your name- piss you OFF?!?"
something like that.
tremendous song, one of my favorites of the avocado bunch.
Of which we're caught in the middle.
A couple of lucky ones
Tangled up in too much love
~cowboy junkies
Of which we're caught in the middle.
A couple of lucky ones
Tangled up in too much love
~cowboy junkies
There is a marker,... No one sees it cause the sand
Has covered over,... All the messages it kept
Misunderstanding,... What original truth was
And out expanding,... In a faith, but not in love
What went wrong?
that part especially seems to me he's talking about how the original messages of the major religions are being missed, they're covered up by all of the stuff people place on religion to use it to control....
There is a sickness,...... A sickness coming over me
Like watching freedom,. Being sucked straight out to sea
And the solution?,........ Well, from me far would let it be
But the delusion,.......... Is feeling dangerous to me
What goes wrong?
this is probably the strongest message i get from the song, to me it's like he's saying religion and those who are using it people with it are sucking our freedomes away and the religion being the delusion is getting more and more dangerous....
i guess i might have a very different view then some because i'm an atheist, but the is a very powerful song and one of my fav. of the new album...
10/12/2000 KS
06/13/2003 IA
06/15/2003 ND
06/16/2003 Mn
06/21/2003 WI
10/05/2004 MO
10/08/2004 FL
09/08/2005 MB
09/09/2005 ON
05/17/2006 IL
05/19/2006 MI
07/02/2006 CO
08/05/2007 Lolla
06/14/2008 B'roo
Kill Fascists.... or at least make them realize what they are.
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