Digging in the dirt
Stay with me, I need support
I’m digging in the dirt
To find the places I got hurt
Open up the places I got hurt
It came as a stunning that’s-so-obvious-how-could-I-have-missed-it flash; randomly Googling while listening to Peter Gabriel: This song was his response to doing psychotherapy.
Suddenly it goes from being faintly obscure to being almost sickeningly blunt. Especially so for the self loathing… or at least that’s how I read the verse:
Don’t talk back
Just drive the car
Shut your mouth
I know what you are
Don’t say nothing
Keep your hands on the wheel
Don’t turn around
This is for real
It rings so true! This is the moment when the insight bites back and you see your worst actions and thoughts highlighted in terms of the kind of motives you most despise. It’s consistent because you despise the things you see in yourself, even if you’re not aware of them. Circular and nasty, and a lot like being trapped in a car with a gunman: This could kill you, and you can’t run away because it’s in your head. It’s you, but it’s a nightmarish, animalistic, vicious stranger.
This whole thing reminds me of one of my great internet wish-list items: a good honest site (i.e. not banner-ad whores or purveyors of unsafe pop-up-riddled crud) which focuses on the analysis of lyrics? The web festers with dodgy/ugly/dangerous servers for music lyrics, all with mixed qualities of transcription, but what about analysis? When Usenet was king, there was a very fine Jethro-Tull newsgroup which tended towards analysing Tull’s exquisitely obscure and suggestive lyrics. Want more! I know the world is positively teeming with people who shine at this kind of thing: fans who know all the secrets and detailed history of their favourite performer. Smarter souls than I have read the words to Looking through a glass onion and seen funny, complex hidden messages amidst the drug-haze. These people deserve their fifteen minutes of fame, and I want to pick their brains! O Web2.0, why hast thou forsaken me?
On a related but completely tangential note, is it just me, or is the entire backing for the end of Secret World ripped off in Oasis’ Fuckin’ in the bushes?