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What do these lyrics mean?


Horne

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A friend of me sent me these lyrics the other day, and I can't for the life of me figure out what they're about. Any ideas?

 

 

 

Big Joe sat on the wall contemplating tomorrows yet to come,

While Union Jack watched, licking his wounds in the open sun,

Jack tossed a bone in his favour hoping for the latest flavour of peace,

But all he got for his trouble was fresh danger from the East.


"Too many futures are decided this way," said Jack with a boyish grin,

As the scared children looked on and prayed for the right answers to come from within.


Will you come with me brother?

Or is there another,

Who you'd rather have stand at your side?

"There is no other," said Jack to his brother,

But I can't come just for the ride.


There was a screech of dismay as Joe ran away and leapt headfirst to the sun,

In bleak disarray, Jack could not delay and at once broke into a run.


The preachers of distance, being men of insistence,

Fled from the palace of greed,

While the dogs and the soldiers of fortune,

Sat down in the palace to feed.


"Will you dine here tonight,

Or is there a fight that better fulfills your needs?"

"There is no fight," said the soldiers in fright,

"That can transform our flowers from weeds."


In no less than an hour, the tower of power,

Was reduced to rubble and hurt,

Jack stood by and allowed Joe to cry;

His beloved dreams turned to dirt.


As Joe leaned on his brother,

He saw just one other,

His certainties turned to hope,


With horizons ablaze,

The brothers, unfazed,

Began climbing the everlasting rope.

 

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Big Joe is clearly Big Joe Kennedy, powerbroker extraordinaire and father of John F. Kennedy. Or maybe President Joe from the Bowie song (which is often cited as a reference to Joe Kennedy's own thwarted presidential opinions or perhaps his eldest son Joe, Jr, in whom he invested his own political aspirations).

 

Union Jack is clearly a misdirection -- not the British flag but a reference to "Jack" (John F.) Kennedy and his relation with American labor unions (almost spelled it labour, there). Licking his wounds... self-explanatory: the open sun refers to the fiery celestial sun shining in heaven -- or hell -- or maybe purgatory. The future is really a sly reference to the past, as the child is father to the man. Scared children -- clearly an anagram -- it really refers to sacred children.

 

Another brother, come with me -- well, duh. Brother Bobby Kennedy, called to join his brother on the other side of the celestial seas.

 

The preachers of distance -- the disapproving conservatives who couldn't stand to see the handsome young Kennedy get all the girls and who advocated sexual abstinence... at least from women. But where does legitimate soldierly camaraderie stop, eh? Clearly a forshadowing of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell rule. But they're forced to political intercourse with the heterosexual adventurers like Kennedy, the dogs.

 

The next verse is a carefully veiled illusion to contraband horticulture. Prudence forbears further discussion.

 

Tower of Power is a clear reference to the East Bay club scene later in that decade and the great horn section of that band... which, of course, ties in with Joshua's trumpet and Jericho, as well, hence the reference to rubble. Also, a sly but perhaps misplaced reference to Fred Flinstone sidekick Barney Rubble. I'll have to research this aspect more. I'm afraid I'm no expert on popular entertainment.

 

Now we have Joe and his brother -- leading us to believe this is a reference to Joe Jr, John's elder brother who Joseph, Sr, had invested all his political hopes in, only to see them crushed when Joe was killed in WWII.

 

Certainties turn to hope is a long-throw foreshadowing of the coming of new kind of president in the 90s, Bill Clinton of Hope, Arkansas. Also a pun on the words, certain tease.

 

Horizon's ablaze refers to the oil field fires in Kuwait, without question. Another foreshadowing. Unfazed -- another clever pun, not meaning undaunted, as one would expect, but, rather, unaffected by a photon beam phaser leveled at them by creatures from the future who have just slid down a very long rope from a suborbital mother ship. The endless is clearly poetic license -- a little necessary obfuscation to keep this poem from seeming too out front, too on the nose, too obvious.

 

 

I think any reasoned analysis will surely concur with my own.

 

Thank you.

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Hell no......not crap.

 

Your friend was simply indulging in a 'train of thought' songwriting experience where he/she wrote what came to mind without really trying to put together a cohesive message.

 

I, myself, have done many of these in earlier years.

 

You will never hear any of them. Ever.

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What Blue wrote was Golden...!!...I have no idea if it is even close but it sounds as if he has taken many creative writing classes and used every bit of those experiences and put them into his reply...real good analogy...as a matter of fact...I like his write better than the one we were critiquing!!

 

I am not totally convinced this was all original...sounded like parts of a poem and parts of an article or historical write combined all into a song...almost as if written by more than one person...IDK...entertaining though

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So it's all crap then?

 

 

That is a broad philosophical argument which I am inclined to agree with but not prepared to debate. :poke:

 

As far as the lyric - it's got that pseudo-Biblical "Slow Train Coming" era Dylan feel to it - seems fine as far as it goes - I have no idea what it means.

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So it's all crap then?

 

 

Not at all!

 

My little riff was more about our own sometimes need/desire to try to puzzle this stuff out -- we humans are, after all, pattern recognition machines...

 

There's no rule that says a song has to mean anything specific, even to the writer him/herself.

 

 

That said... I think the listener can end up resenting a song that, at the end, makes him feel like he was being strung along or jived. If someone invests some interest or feeling in a song and then is made to feel like he's been duped or conned, watch out.

 

 

Now, taking this song specifically, it's only at the end, where the song sort of runs out of narrative (if not rope) that the listener might start feeling ill-used, if only because the punch line doesn't really match the build-up. And I think that is possibly this song's greatest weak spot.

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What Blue wrote was Golden...!!...I have no idea if it is even close but it sounds as if he has taken many creative writing classes and used every bit of those experiences and put them into his reply...real good analogy...as a matter of fact...I like his write better than the one we were critiquing!!


I am not totally convinced this was all original...sounded like parts of a poem and parts of an article or historical write combined all into a song...almost as if written by more than one person...IDK...entertaining though

 

I took a few creative writing classes in my wildly variegated and highly undisciplined interdisciplinary education. ;)

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Big Joe is clearly Big Joe Kennedy, powerbroker extraordinaire and father of John F. Kennedy. Or maybe President Joe from the Bowie song (which is often cited as a reference to Joe Kennedy's own thwarted presidential opinions or perhaps his eldest son Joe, Jr, in whom he invested his own political aspirations).


Union Jack is clearly a misdirection -- not the British flag but a reference to "Jack" (John F.) Kennedy and his relation with American labor unions (almost spelled it
labour
, there). Licking his wounds... self-explanatory: the
open sun
refers to the fiery celestial sun shining in heaven -- or hell -- or maybe purgatory. The
future
is really a sly reference to
the past
, as the child is father to the man.
Scared children
-- clearly an anagram -- it
really
refers to
sacred
children.


Another brother, come with me
-- well,
duh
. Brother Bobby Kennedy, called to join his brother on the other side of the celestial seas.


The
preachers of distance
-- the disapproving conservatives who couldn't stand to see the handsome young Kennedy get all the girls and who advocated sexual abstinence...
at least from women
. But where does legitimate soldierly camaraderie stop, eh? Clearly a forshadowing of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell rule. But they're forced to political intercourse with the heterosexual adventurers like Kennedy, the
dogs.


The next verse is a carefully veiled illusion to contraband horticulture. Prudence forbears further discussion.


Tower of Power is a clear reference to the East Bay club scene later in that decade and the great horn section of that band... which, of course, ties in with Joshua's trumpet and Jericho, as well, hence the reference to
rubble
. Also, a sly but perhaps misplaced reference to Fred Flinstone sidekick Barney Rubble. I'll have to research this aspect more. I'm afraid I'm no expert on popular entertainment.


Now we have Joe and his brother -- leading us to believe this is a reference to Joe Jr, John's elder brother who Joseph, Sr, had invested all his political hopes in, only to see them crushed when Joe was killed in WWII.


Certainties turn to hope
is a long-throw foreshadowing of the coming of new kind of president in the 90s, Bill Clinton of Hope, Arkansas. Also a pun on the words,
certain tease.


Horizon's ablaze refers to the oil field fires in Kuwait, without question. Another foreshadowing.
Unfazed --
another clever pun, not meaning
undaunted
, as one would expect, but, rather, unaffected by a photon beam phaser leveled at them by creatures from the future who have just slid down a
very long
rope from a suborbital mother ship. The
endless
is
clearly
poetic license -- a little necessary obfuscation to keep this poem from seeming too out front, too on the nose, too
obvious.



I think any reasoned analysis will surely concur with my own.


Thank you.

 

aha :lol:

 

you = awsome

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Not at all
!

Now, taking this song specifically, it's only at the end, where the song sort of runs out of narrative (if not
rope
) that the listener
might
start feeling ill-used, if only because the punch line doesn't really match the build-up. And I think
that
is possibly this song's greatest weak spot.

 

 

Shoulda gone with "slope" huh?

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took a few creative writing classes in my wildly variegated and highly undisciplined interdisciplinary education.


Huh?
:confused::)
...I have to check my dictionary to see if those are words...Ha!!
;)

 

That's how I learned them. ;)

 

Actually, I may have looked up interdisciplinary when I got a letter inviting me to interview for an interdisciplinary studies program at the college I was starting in the fall. I was shocked when I got into it and found out the kids from other school districts already knew what interdisciplinary meant. Thrown in with those kids, who all got an education in high school, I quickly developed the ability to sling polysyllabic bs better and farther than my more learned school chums, who were, after all, encumbered by all that weighty knowledge -- making them lumbering dinosaurs to my mammalian wiliness.

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