Thursday, October 18, 2007

lyrics interpreted

"The Boat Dreams from the Hill" by Jawbreaker 1992

Boat on a hill, never going to sea.
Anchored to a fixer upper's dream.
This boat is beat, never going to be a boat now.
Thirsty, sees the sea from high on ice plant.

He keeps patching it and painting.
Thinking about his pension plan.
But the boat is out to pasture.
Seems it never had a chance.

I wanna be a boat. I wanna learn to swim
Then I'll learn to float. Then begin again.
Boat on a hill, never going to sea.
Anchored to a fixer upper's dream.
This boat is beat, never going to be a boat now.
Thirsty, sees the sea from high on ice plant.

He keeps patching it and painting.
Thinking about his pension plan.
But the boat is out to pasture.
Seems it never had a chance.

I wanna be a boat. I wanna learn to swim
Then I'll learn to float. Then begin again.

Boat remembers the carpenter's sure hand.
Missing fishy flutter on it's rudder.
Sold at an auction, on a dolly ever since.
Sometimes rainy days bring boyish wonder


Boat remembers the carpenter's sure hand.
Missing fishy flutter on it's rudder.
Sold at an auction, on a dolly ever since.
Sometimes rainy days bring boyish wonder

My interpretation:
I think this song is about keeping faith in times of incredible discouragement. The boat (or person) sees its dream from where it's confined, but can't do anything about it. The boat thinks back to better times and the event that sealed its fate (the auction sale). Still,though the situation seems hopeless, like the boat will never return to the ocean, its wonderful memories persist and give meaning to its existence.

2 comments:

Adam Nathanson said...

A similar story to that of the "Boat" in the song is the movie "Omega Man" with Charlton Heston. In the film, everyone has been turned into mutants by a worldwide disease, except Heston, who took an antidote. He fights off the mutants constantly, thinking he may be the last human alive. But the positive memories of pre-mutant civilization keep him pushing forward. In this case he is rewarded for his efforts when he discovers that there are still some healthy people left alive to help him repopulate the earth.

TAKEN BY DRO said...

To me this is deep to me and it takes on a deep meaning that kind of kurts me, because it is very hard to put into words. This particular piece has different meanings to me. The feelings I am feeling is very deep, but I think that it is a piece with multiple meanings with different emotions.