I will show another me

Being a huge Genesis fan, I am obviously a fan of Peter Gabriel. I'm not crazy about his music since he left Genesis, but he is hands down one of the greatest lyricists in the history of rock'n'roll. In fact, one of his Genesis songs "The Cinema Show" was included in a college-level text book on modern poetry as THE song representative of the entire rock'n'roll genre, but I digress...

"Solsbury Hill" is sheer genius and has always been one of my favorite songs of his, but only recently have I understood the deeper meaning of the lyrics. I won't take up space with the lyrics, but you can follow along here. This is my interpretation of the song:

First verse: in a moment of clarity, he is rescued from his own life.

Second verse: he decides to turn within to rebuild himself, silently, lest anyone consider him a nutjob for thinking that he actually has the power to fix himself, because in the eyes of others, that would require Jesus-like abilities ("turning water into wine").

Third verse:
When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
  • I will never achieve the person I strive to be, the life I yearn to live, living under the shell of self-deception. I am NOT the person I want to be while I do not understand myself fully.
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
  • Furthermore, I am not only not living up to my fullest potential, but I am actually shackled, chained, imprisoned to live a life of depression, self-loathing and agony while I do not choose to live a life of freedom. There is no middle ground: I am either a "sailor of the world, bound for all ports" or I am a beaten-down, starving slave. The choice of which life to live is mine.
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
  • So many detractors, so many disparagers, so many daily reminders that I cannot be more than what they believe I am... But they are blind. It is THEY who lack the vision, NOT me! Well, FUCK YOU! There IS another life for me to live! I DO have the power to transform myself into my full potential! There IS another "me" stuck within this shell, and I am setting him FREE!
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
  • And now, as I stand here at the end of the rebuilding process, I am truly reborn. I no longer need to put on a fake face, to show empty courage in a feeble attempt to convince others that I am happy in my life. On the contrary, where I am now is so overwhelmingly joyous that I cannot help but beam my delight from every pore. THIS is the smile of freedom, of self-determination and of deep, spiritual contentment.
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
They've come to take me home."
  • In fact, things are so great here that I don't need to carry along the baggage of the past. I have an entirely new life! The possessions of the world are meaningless here. I don't need them. I am home.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forced birth is slavery

The Supreme Court of the United States appears to be on the precipice of making the most heinous, inhuman ruling of law since the Dred Scott case. There is no way to sugarcoat the gravity of the stakes. Restricting abortion rights denies a person of their humanity. Fundamental to issue of abortion rights is the concept of bodily autonomy. If a person does not have the right to dominion over their own body, which certainly must be denied in order to deny a pregnant person the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, then truly, a person does not have any other rights at all. Without the self-evident right to bodily autonomy, a citizen of the United States loses all of the following rights which have been sacrosanct since before the Constitution was drafted, before the Declaration of Independence was signed: Freedom of speech Without control over their own body, a person does not have the right to articulate, write or type words. If the state has control over a person's body, the s
Read more

The Right to Bear Arms is Outdated and Needs to be Repealed from the Constitution

The 2nd Amendment grants citizens the right to use a certain technology. It does not say "right to defend themselves" or "right to carry swords". It says "right to bear arms". The historically and contextually accurate interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is the states have the right to defend themselves against an aggressive federal government by using war technology which was, at the time of the drafting of the Bill of Rights, guns: manual rifles and hand pistols which could fire 1-2 bullets per minute. If the intent was enable states to defend themselves, then clearly they must have the right to match the war technology of the aggressive federal government against whom they have the right to defend themselves. The concept that the right is limited to guns is historically-bound and irrational, as it does not advanced through time along with literally every other right and law in the Federal Code. If the aggressive federal government uses technology to adv
Read more

Joshua stopping the sun

I would argue that a spherical earth is in fact anti-(Abrahamic religions). There are several passages of "historical events" in the Old Testament that cannot possibly be true unless the Earth is flat and stationary. For example, Joshua stopping the sun in the sky for 12 hours and then starting it again. If Joshua had stopped the rotation of the spherical Earth, every object above ground, including the oceans, would have lurched forward at >1,000 mph, not merely killing almost all life on the planet but turning it to jelly. The story only works if the lightbulb is "out there" and we/Joshua are the ones who are stationary. Technically, yes he could have bent the light waves from the sun, but since the sun simply continued on afterward, that bending must still be in place today. The new curvature through space-time must have accounted for not only the sun but for literally every single light particle in the entire observable universe, because we are not physically
Read more