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Given to Fly/Ishmael interpretation?
Terrible Claw
Posts: 2
Ok, some nutty thoughts on Given To Fly and Ishmael.
Ed said that Ishmael was pretty much the liner notes to Yield. My favorite album of all time, and my favorite book (the sequels don't count). Everyone talks about Do the Evolution as the only one that was inspired by Quinn, and while that's true, I say several were...the first 4 for sure, maybe In Hiding and definitely All Those Yesterdays (I think it's a double-meaning song).
That said, in My Ishmael, Ishmael tells of a young guy called Jeff who is smart, attractive, personable, etc., but just can't find a purpose in our goofed-up society. He has friends everywhere, but he never finds his place and can't bring himself to find a job, devote his life to it, get a house in the suburbs, etc (coulda tuned in, tuned in, but he tuned out...). Ishmael's story concludes with Jeff walking into the ocean or a lake, can't remember which, and drowning himself. Given to Fly, I think, might be an alternate ending to this sad story, in which Jeff figured it out and found the love he needed at the last second.
Maybe My Ishmael came out after Yield, maybe not. Either way, thinking of it in that way leads to a slightly different, yet equally powerful meaning behind Given to Fly. When you read a book like Ishmael, it changes you forever in ways that aren't always immediately obvious, so I have no doubt that it affected this song on one level or another.
Ed said that Ishmael was pretty much the liner notes to Yield. My favorite album of all time, and my favorite book (the sequels don't count). Everyone talks about Do the Evolution as the only one that was inspired by Quinn, and while that's true, I say several were...the first 4 for sure, maybe In Hiding and definitely All Those Yesterdays (I think it's a double-meaning song).
That said, in My Ishmael, Ishmael tells of a young guy called Jeff who is smart, attractive, personable, etc., but just can't find a purpose in our goofed-up society. He has friends everywhere, but he never finds his place and can't bring himself to find a job, devote his life to it, get a house in the suburbs, etc (coulda tuned in, tuned in, but he tuned out...). Ishmael's story concludes with Jeff walking into the ocean or a lake, can't remember which, and drowning himself. Given to Fly, I think, might be an alternate ending to this sad story, in which Jeff figured it out and found the love he needed at the last second.
Maybe My Ishmael came out after Yield, maybe not. Either way, thinking of it in that way leads to a slightly different, yet equally powerful meaning behind Given to Fly. When you read a book like Ishmael, it changes you forever in ways that aren't always immediately obvious, so I have no doubt that it affected this song on one level or another.
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but i think other interpretations can be underlined easier i posted somewhere one, one moment i will get it
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
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
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
A guy called Joseph Campbell wrote a book called "the Hero with 1000 Faces". He looks at similarities between hero myths in different cultures, the steps they go through (seperation, rebirth, return), their characteristics (isolated, insurmountably seperate from everyone else) and so on, and I think this song, in a very very broad sense, is about a hero for our time and place, something we as a culture lack (I think). Which is why it gives us chills, and similar stories have given folks all over the world chills.