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frank_black_francis
= Cult of Ray =
Canada
895 Posts |
 Posted - 02/15/2003 : 16:46:25
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is it me, or is this song incredibly depressing when you read the lyrics closely? i'm wondering if the song is an ode to beckett's "waiting for godot", or if the beckett references serve some other purpose.
- and when we get there the irish in me, is gonna claim it for france...(like james joyce, beckett was an irish writerliving in self-imposed exile in france).
-the repeating of this line over and over in the song (with growing intensity, seems to me to reflect the character lucky's monologue where he repeats himself with growing intensity to the point where he passes out...
-if you havent read "waiting for godot",its basically a play about the meaninglessness of existence (its quite heady but probably the most accessible of beckett's work).
- so if any of you out there noticed the same thing about the song, let me know....or if you have another take on the song too...
...and evolving from the sea, would not be too much time for me, to walk beside you in the sun.... |
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mereubu
= FB QuizMistress =
USA
2677 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2003 : 18:14:57
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Yeah, I think about this too from time to time. In one of my classes, I show Beckett's "Rockaby" and there's a moment in the "making-of" segment of the video where actress Billie Whitelaw (Beckett's chosen interpreter of his works) talks about being in a Beckett play like being "blasted off into the outer space." I laughed out loud the day we saw it and my students prolly thought I was crazy. Now, I know there's no connection there, but in conjunction with what I have always assumed are the other Beckett references in the song, it was funny.
I don't know if I find "Blast Off" depressing, but it does have a definite sense of resignation or at least being done with one thing and ready for another. "Take shit as shit is." (But not going as far as Beckett's "Nothing to be done." ) |
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Omer
= Cult of Ray =
275 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2003 : 09:33:29
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I don't know... for me, Blast Off is such a positive song... it starts dark, and then becomes a run through space, with drugs, roads, and some sort of bizarre quest for a lonely planet... high score in my book.
Omer |
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frank_black_francis
= Cult of Ray =
Canada
895 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2003 : 13:57:09
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it is a damn good song.....but i find that the void imagery persists despite the fact that he is "blasting off".....in a sense, i think the song is a concious marker of departure from some of the darker themes explored in previous albums.....maybe i'm reading a bit too much into (i'm the first to admit it)....let's just say he makes reference to beckett themes to set the stage from which he blasts off into one of the best albums around today......mighty cool observation from mere ubu about take shit as shit is (Nothing Can be Done).....
...and evolving from the sea, would not be too much time for me, to walk beside you in the sun.... |
Edited by - frank_black_francis on 02/16/2003 13:58:12 |
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floop
= Wannabe Volunteer =
Mexico
15297 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2003 : 23:30:50
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i've always wondered how the Beckett thing figured in (for him)..
even though i can't really put it all together, the song still rocks..
i'm a pretty big Beckett guy myself.
if you have the patience, and you like his stage stuff, you should read his trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable..
pretty funny stuff.. bleak, but funny..
interesting reading though, fbf..
i been meanin' to get out of Hollywood. |
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wylie
- FB Fan -
3 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2003 : 12:16:54
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i always thought this long jammy song was funny as shit and mysterious too, for awhile it was monotonous and 5 minutes long to me kinda like 'switch you'?(t2,pistolero) but when i could get into the 'lil permutations in jam its pretty amazing. that whole record is really fucking dark and tragic but not depressing to me at all. reading lotta nietzsche lately so i guess i'd say its like affirmation of life even at its darkest and most transient and most tragic. he's got such a great sense of humour throughout, and a great timelessness in perspective and aesthetics..
ireland and france and england.
ireland represents spirited, adventerous('when we get there[and kick some ass]'), intuitive, mystical and old celtic, rebelious, redhaired and crazymaybe, or maybe black irish, which is spanish soldier blood from the 1500s right after they got done with a couple centuries against the moors, also kinda crazy and martial.
france is the object of the subject's affection, a beautiful, romantic, cultured, tripsy daisy and sexy as kournikova on speedy acid(?sorry!)
england is common sensical, cavalier, urbane, sterile rationality, calculating and sedentary, low on imagination, high on obsequiousness and class consciousness..
ireland and france both historically enemies of england, both remain loyal to the 'catholics'(and frank, presumably), yet england dominated both eventually, but in the song, as in ulysses, there is so much mystical weirdness going on, like time travel, typology and whatnot, so its like he's saying even when things look at their worst.. 'is going to claim it for france, i'm on a beckett rant(beckett obliterates the kinda smug self-righteousness to which the english might have rep for, '..from all that chemical'.. confident of victory, to me that chemical will always represent acid and dxm and coffee and speed(i take adderall) some kinda elixer prepared for the hero by hephaestus, or some kinda old irish gnome/man in the green hills, maybe elves, maybe a faery from normandy like tinkerbell crossed with a pretty french actress? tension building toward the blast-off into space and ultimate freedom and victory, love and affirmation of everything.
by the time you get to track2, hopefully you are so in space you don't hear it coming. he's in space, so you need to be. done blasted off, frank gives you some sorta hyperdimensional tour of creation.
obviously i fucking love dog in the sand. i could go on for days. please dont think i'm ascribing these interpretations to frank himself, the nice thing about great music is that the writers interpretations and motivations dont have to be exactly the same as the listeners, great music leaves so much room for creative individualized interpretation. |
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frank_black_francis
= Cult of Ray =
Canada
895 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2003 : 15:03:30
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right you are wylie
...and evolving from the sea, would not be too much time for me, to walk beside you in the sun.... |
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Steak n Sabre
* Dog in the Sand *
Uzbekistan
1013 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2003 : 10:18:49
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| Can we get any deeper here....Lol |
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puredenizen
- FB Fan -
1 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2003 : 16:20:14
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yeah, but what do these lyrics mean?
"all i'm saying pretty baby la la love you don't mean maybe"
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Edited by - puredenizen on 02/23/2003 16:21:59 |
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Vicki
- FB Fan -
USA
72 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2003 : 11:23:44
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| I don't know if I've ever listened to it entirely......sorry. But while reading this post, I decided to try it. I had just voted for it in dits#3.....I did the right thing.I'd be curious to know if it were a song he actually put a lot of himself into or if he made it up that morning. |
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