Up & Bill - lyric analysis question! :)
kfj
didn't ask for him permission i won't repost it here) about Up and Bill
and I thought i would ask opinions here - home of so many great
analysists. :) oh, and i'm sick of every other post being about buying
or selling tickets. no offense to anyone, i just wish we had more posts
to balance the other stuff out. :)
Rob thought that a lot of the album reflected the loss of Bill: the we
can go on thing in lotus and walk unafraid. Falls to Climb as someone's
perspective of feeling they had partly caused someone to be in an
untenable position and their subsequent sacrifice, stepping up to the
post, as it were. And Parakeet is easy to see as having Bill's leaving
as a partial inspiration. i realize Stipe insists none of the songs
ahve to do with Bill, but i think he's, well, not telling the truth to
protect Bill and avoid the subject.
Thoughts?
I apologize in advance to Rob for my mangling of his great analysis -
all incoherent and weird connections are my fault. :)
-k
--
And thus, after thousands of years, apple butter proved that it had
not lost its power to alter history. Scholars who ignore this all-
important breakfast condiment do so at their own peril.
-Laura Del Col
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Angie
>Rob thought that a lot of the album reflected the loss of Bill: the we
>can go on thing in lotus and walk unafraid. Falls to Climb as someone's
>perspective of feeling they had partly caused someone to be in an
>untenable position and their subsequent sacrifice, stepping up to the
>post, as it were. And Parakeet is easy to see as having Bill's leaving
>as a partial inspiration. i realize Stipe insists none of the songs
>ahve to do with Bill, but i think he's, well, not telling the truth to
>protect Bill and avoid the subject.
This could very well be true. When I first listened to "Up", I thought there
was a recurrent theme about the workplace -- a worker being unhappy with where
he or she was, re-evaluating, apologizing, regretting, friends intervening, and
finally the worker escaping to freedom. I always blamed it on the fact that I
REALLY wanted to quit my job when I bought that CD. :)
However, being in R.E.M. is Peter's, Mike's and Michael's job, and it was
Bill's job. It's been widely reported how unhappy Bill was with having to do
all the things that came with being in a rock band, and surely the guys tried
to talk him out of leaving. But in the end, he was "freed". So the album
possibly could be read as the story of Bill's journey of re-prioritizing, the
guys' efforts to cheer him ("Why not smile, Bill?") and to understand, and
finally his departure from the group.
This making sense to anyone? :)
Just a thought,
Angie
********************************************************************
"I'll wait until it's on television, when I'm too drunk to read a book or pick
up my guitar...2005, maybe?" -- Peter Buck, on when he'll watch "Star Wars Ep.
1"
kfj
news:19990704183434...@ng34.aol.com...
> k mused:
> >i realize Stipe insists none of the songs
> >ahve to do with Bill, but i think he's, well, not telling the truth to
> >protect Bill and avoid the subject.
> However, being in R.E.M. is Peter's, Mike's and Michael's job, and it was
> Bill's job. It's been widely reported how unhappy Bill was with having to
do
> all the things that came with being in a rock band, and surely the guys
tried
> to talk him out of leaving. But in the end, he was "freed". So the album
> possibly could be read as the story of Bill's journey of re-prioritizing,
the
> guys' efforts to cheer him ("Why not smile, Bill?") and to understand, and
> finally his departure from the group.
>
> This making sense to anyone? :)
yep. Also, i suddenly thought that even daysleeper can have its own Billish
angle. on Rosie, Mike Mills commented that Bill liked to wake at 6 am, but
the demands of their job meant that most of the time they would all wake at
11 and stay up way past midnight. in a sense, the band are daysleepers are
of a sort. and it was one of the things Bill disliked. Which also might
explain why michael is able to capture the dislocation of living on such a
weird schedule.
-k
--
Mike Mills: "I'm sorry we had to lose the nine and a half casual listeners
we had..." Peter Buck: "It's not that bad Mike. We've only shed six
million."
the funniest web site I've ever seen:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/special.html
karenfj at hotmail dot com is the correct address.
Hank
'I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs!'' before typing:
<snipped>
>
>Thoughts?
The opening lyrics on Airportman ("Great opportunities") immediately
struck me as a statement about Bill's departure and the effect on the
band.
Hank
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kfj
news:37813e4...@news.virgin.net...
> On Sun, 04 Jul 1999 20:05:24 GMT, kfj <kar...@my-deja.com> yelled
> 'I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs!'' before typing:
>
> <snipped>
>
> >
> >Thoughts?
>
> The opening lyrics on Airportman ("Great opportunities") immediately
> struck me as a statement about Bill's departure and the effect on the
> band.
> Hank
ah. i see that now. :) "he moves efficiently/beyond security" - typical
michael - something new to think about with each listen. [1]
-k
[1] in contrast to say, "livin the vida loca" where every listen makes me
think "turn off the radio."
Robert Andrews
> Rob Andrews posted a great interpretation on the remarks list
I'm really glad you liked it and have moved it along; thanks for the
compliment. You've each come up with good ideas. You do have my permission
to post it if you want, or I can forward it. In the meantime, to keep this
alive, I remembered a post I made to MLA in mid-January, specifically about
Parakeet. Now if only I could remember the dates of all those other Up
analsyes because, whilst it might not be the overriding theme of the album
(I'm covering myself), it doesn't end with Parakeet.
[ January 19, 1999 ]
> Agreement [with initial confusion]... it had me completely clueless as
well. But I've come up
> with some sort of interpretation - perhaps a slightly arrogant and
> equally clueless one, seeing as though I'm going to say it is, in a
> way, about Bill.
>
> A little like 'Falls to Climb,' I think there is some kind of guilt
> at a situation the writer thinks he may have provoked, centering
> around the dead-bird-who-can't-fly-away metaphor...
>
> "Mean cats eat parakeets."
> Were the writer and his friends responsible for crippling this
> person?
>
> "And greasy window slide, open for the parakeet who's coloured bitter
> lime."
> This person is off-colour, unhappy, and looking for a way out, to fly
> out of the rock-music-celebrity room, to "lift into your dreams" of a
> more peacfeul life.
>
> "You can barely breathe."
> That rock-music-celebrity room makes the person - who is not happy
> with attention, travelling and so on - claustrophobic. Must get out.
>
> "You fold the leavings of your past, no-one knows you're gone."
> Well, he was 'only the drummer.' Because of the nature of what he
> wanted to get away from, would anyone care, and wouldn't it, in fact,
> be better if those attention-givers didn't care and left him alone as
> he wanted?
>
> "The sunspot flares of the early nineties light up your wings."
> Those bright, big musical hits and good, megapopular times were,
> perhaps, on reflection, not to happy for this person, only
> highLIGHTing the means by which he wants to escape.
>
> "Warm Pacific breeze, where mean cats chew on licorice and cannot
> climb the trees."
> A Hawaii setting in 1997, the scene of, perhaps, most unhappiness. If
> the other cats feel guilty of putting him through that unhappiness,
> then they are not able to carry on for a moment from the guilt of
> realisation. That environment leading to...
>
> "The tectonic dispatcher shifts to smooth the ocean floor."
> Despite plate tectonics being a destructive force, causing
> earthquakes along fault-lines, the head that they brought things to
> here has smoothed things over for a new beginning. When those
> continental plates rub together just like tensions and differences in
> a band, something errupts, but the new geography created from those
> forces, the new landscape paves the way for something new, and a
> happier parakeet, having had his place "flattened out to warmer
> winds." Isn't that a great image? R.E.M.'s career-and-friendship
> situation as a geographical element which is reshaped?
>
> So, I'll stop now. I don't know whether this interpretation is
> correct or not, but, as I've read it, I think the writing (the way
> in which he conveys that story of an uncomfortable person, and the
> environment reshaping the whole situation, entirely as an
> environmental song) is great. It's a pretty surreal song.
Helen Toland had an extra few good points...
[ January 20, 1999 ]
> At last Parakeet is beginning to make some sense in my head. Rob, you're
> a genius! I really like
> the explaination that it could be about Bill, it really ties in well.
> I like the whole idea that it could also be music industry "fat cats'
> who created the disillusionment which led to his decision to leave. I
> know this may be taking it too far but "A broken wrist" again is an injury
> which would leave a drummer disabled, "an accident" could this be
> referring to the illness that plagued Bill during the monster tour? "You
> know that somethings wrong", Didnt Bill claim to have been unhappy for a
> while before Bertis made him confront the reat of the band?
--
Rob Andrews
mean cats eat parakeets
http://athens.home.ml.org
Tad Schirz
interpretation overall works with "The Bill Theory (TBT)."
> > "Mean cats eat parakeets."
Both 'mean cats' and 'parakeet' are clearly used figuratively. Quite
possibly, corporate execs (music fat cats) as opposed to artists (Bill).
One thing is curious: since *all* cats would presumably eat a parakeet,
why say 'mean cats' instead of just 'cats'? I suppose it could be to
tip us off to the "mean-cat-is-really-a-mean-guy" metaphor.
> > '
> > "And greasy window slide, open for the parakeet who's coloured
bitter
> > lime."
> > This person is off-colour, unhappy, and looking for a way out, to
fly
> > out of the rock-music-celebrity room, to "lift into your dreams" of
a
> > more peacfeul life.
Since 'bitter lime' infers the color green, it suggests a 'sick' person.
Perhaps that's what you intended by 'off-colour'.
> >
> > "You can barely breathe."
> > That rock-music-celebrity room makes the person - who is not happy
> > with attention, travelling and so on - claustrophobic. Must get out.
I would say perhaps litterally, the stolen bird is caged (nearly
dead...you can barely breathe) and probably being smuggled by ship (you
wish the wind would shift). Figuratively, the artist is suffocating.
"A broken wrist, an accident"
Notice now how the first lines of the first two verses connect. That
is, the broken wrist would be a logical injury from falling out of bed.
Most lines that follow in each verse use figurative language to extend
the metaphors of cat/bird = greed/art.
> > "You fold the leavings of your past, no-one knows you're gone."
> > Well, he was 'only the drummer.' Because of the nature of what he
> > wanted to get away from, would anyone care, and wouldn't it, in
fact,
> > be better if those attention-givers didn't care and left him alone
as
> > he wanted?
Hmm. You appear to have explained the second part of the line; I'm not
sure you got all the way at the first part. 'You fold the leavings of
your past' suggests his departure from the band; *fold* suggests a
newspaper. Ergo, he is literally folding away a newspaper about his
leaving REM. You may have alluded to this, but it wasn't clear to me.
> > "The sunspot flares of the early nineties light up your wings."
> > Those bright, big musical hits and good, megapopular times were,
> > perhaps, on reflection, not to happy for this person, only
> > highLIGHTing the means by which he wants to escape.
Yes, I rather like that.
'...scan the shortwave radio, it's tracking outer rings.'
Since Stipe has stated he got the idea for the song from a news story
about organized theft of exotic birds, it would be reasonable to
conclude that *outer rings* alludes (loosely) to the theft ring. Since
the theft required hundreds of miles between South America (birds), the
Caribbean (warehouse) and America (buyers), it may very well be that
shortwave was used to steal, wheel and deal. I wonder if solar flares
had a lesser effect on shortwave radio? Hmmm. Anybody know?
>
> > "The tectonic dispatcher shifts to smooth the ocean floor."
> > Despite plate tectonics being a destructive force, causing
> > earthquakes along fault-lines, the head that they brought things to
> > here has smoothed things over for a new beginning...R.E.M.'s
career-and-friendship
> > situation as a geographical element which is reshaped?
Yes, possibly. Fate personified as a natural force. Hmmm. Also I
would point out the *warmer winds* may correspond to the earlier wishing
for the winds to shift.
'...eucalyptus fragrance...'
You can buy this at any pharmacy. It's often used in vaporizers to aid
breathing. That's probably the connection to the chorus (*you can
barely breathe*).
> > "Warm Pacific breeze, where mean cats chew on licorice and cannot
> > climb the trees."
> > A Hawaii setting in 1997, the scene of, perhaps, most unhappiness.
If
> > the other cats feel guilty of putting him through that unhappiness,
> > then they are not able to carry on for a moment from the guilt of
> > realisation...
> Rob Andrews
> mean cats eat parakeets
> http://athens.home.ml.org
Well, *warm pacific breeze where...* is kind of vague. It could
reasonably allude to either Australia, since the Pacific touches the
inlet where Brisbane lies, or it could just be describing Los Angeles,
where the record execs (mean cats) live. That's the view I take. The
song seems to play on 'dream' as in sleeping, and 'dream' as in lofty
goals.
*Mean cats chew on licorice* seems cryptic. Is it my imagination, or do
eucalyptus and licorice smell alike? If that is the case, then the mean
cat, by eating the parakeet which has drank Eucalyptus, is then in a way
'chewing on licorice' (if in fact, you are what you eat).
I think I need to open a window.
Tad.
kfj
"Robert Andrews" <para...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> karen wrote:
> > Rob Andrews posted a great interpretation on the remarks list
>
> I'm really glad you liked it and have moved it along; thanks for the
> compliment. You've each come up with good ideas. You do have my
permission
> to post it if you want, or I can forward it.
cool! Actually, I searched and searched the remarks digests to find the
post you wrote about falls to climb. I guess I should have searched the
MLA digests also - can we talk about falls to climb now? i'll just
incite, y'all can fill me up with good ideas. :)
-k
--
And thus, after thousands of years, apple butter proved that it had
not lost its power to alter history. Scholars who ignore this all-
important breakfast condiment do so at their own peril.
-Laura Del Col
Lisa Gardner
kfj wrote:
>Hank wrote:
[...]
>> The opening lyrics on Airportman ("Great opportunities") immediately
>> struck me as a statement about Bill's departure and the effect on the
>> band.
>> Hank
>
>ah. i see that now. :) "he moves efficiently/beyond security" - typical
>michael - something new to think about with each listen. [1]
Hmmm. Didn't Michael say something to the effect of how when
he wears orange, airport security doesn't hassle him because of his
shaved head? hah.
Lisa
B.J. Richards
singing the "mean cats" lines to *my* cat when I feed her in the morning!?
Well, I don't care what you guys do with Swans next, I'm still telling her
"what a noisy cat are we!" when she acts up ;-)