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Misinterpreted Lyrics |
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I Dreamed I saw St Augustine: This lyric seems to be constructed directly on the teachings of Augustine of Hippo. The two opening lines echo the folk lyric “Joe Hill” written by Alfred Hayes in 1930: “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night / alive as you and me…” Dylan changes the four syllables “Joe Hill last night” to “St. Augustine”, and in the second line changes “and” to “or”. The overall structure of the lyric is three block stanzas, reminiscent of the shape of Augustine’s famous three-part “You are Christ” prayer. Each stanza of Dylan’s lyric seems devoted to one particular aspect of Augustine’s teaching. The first stanza focuses on Augustine’s concept of predestination, referring to the search for souls “who have already been sold”. The second stanza alludes to Augustine’s amillenialism, i.e., we are not to expect the second coming of Christ in our time, but must proceed with life here on earth as Christ rules in heaven. This is reflected in the lines “no martyr is among ye now / whom you can call your own / so go your way accordingly”. (Whether this is intended as a comment on the martyrdom of Joe Hill is unclear.) The third stanza addresses Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, as the narrator, prompted by Augustine’s fiery words, dreams he was amongst the ones “that put him [i.e., Christ] out to death”. One might think the narrator is talking about Augustine being put out to death, but this may be elliptical, e.g., the “him” may be Christ who died for our original sins. (Augustine was not martyred.) |
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Blackbird: This lyric is clearly about death, but disguised by a superb aural ambiguity. It works as a grave-side eulogy, saying “take these broken wings and learn to fly”, meaning to arise into heaven, followed by the observation “All your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise”. But the craft of this sequence is that it can be given the alternative hearing “…learn to fly all your life. You were only waiting for this moment to arise”. With this hearing, it is addressing a living person. The two interpretations hinge on whether the middle phrase “all your life” is attached prospectively to “learn to fly”, or retrospectively to “you were only waiting”. To me, the lyric is far better and more coherent with the latter interpretation, although the ambiguity adds depth. Oddly, in interviews McCartney has often claimed that the lyric refers to the American civil rights movement, and that “black bird” referred to an African American woman. This seems absurd, and I would have assumed he was joking, but his answer is widely repeated and seems to be taken seriously. |
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Viva la Vida: The first two lines of the chorus for this lyric are typically printed as “I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing / Roman cavalry choirs are singing”, but this hearing rests on the dubious proposition that there is such a thing as Roman cavalry choirs. Roman soldiers were not choir boys. Surely the actual lyric refers not to cavalry (horse soldiers), but to Calvary, i.e., Golgotha, the place outside the walls of Jerusalem where the Romans crucified Jesus. Listening to the words being sung in Coldplay’s recording, the distinction between the pronunciations of cavalry and Calvary is unclear, but in juxtaposition with Jerusalem bells and the later reference to St. Peter (who likely was witness to the crucifixion), combined with the implausibility of singing horse soldiers, one could argue that the intended word must have been Calvary (or at least that this was in the back of the composer’s mind). Still, even on this reading, we have to explain the choirs. In Matthew “the earth did quake and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose”, which might suggest a choir of the risen saints; or it could be an oblique reference to the heavenly choir of angels at the resurrection. Or maybe the horses sang. |
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When the Ship Comes In: This lyric brilliantly describes how self-righteous triumphalism degenerates into fascism. It begins with exuberant sunny enthusiasm and optimism, but by the middle verse we have the ominous reminder that “the whole wide world is watching”, and by the penultimate verse the unnamed “foes” pitifully realize they have lost and are cornered. In the final verse, the foes offer up their surrender – “we’ll meet all your demands” – but receive no sympathy. The last stanza wonderfully evokes a pure tribal rampage, shouting “Like pharaoh’s tribe they’ll be drowneded in the tide”. (This line would surely not pass muster today.) The lyric is so well crafted that it actually is heard by many people as if it is entirely uplifting and free of irony. Many listeners seem to take this song as an anthem of David overcoming Goliath, oblivious to the condemnatory turn that the lyric takes (“fearing not I’d become my enemy…” from My Back Pages.) |
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Morning Has Broken: This simple children’s lyric published in 1931 by Eleanor Farjeon is filled to over-flowing with aural ambiguity, such as the wonderful subliminal phrase “sprung incompleteness”, as well as the obvious pun on “recreation” (to re-create or to play), and the wonderfully wrought title with the dual senses of both morning/mourning and the ambiguous “broken” (arising or ceasing). We already have four different meanings in just the first three words, reinforced by the later reference to Eden (and to the new “fall”). The word “rain” evokes “reign”, and the repeated word “praise” evokes “prays”. The “wet garden” evokes fertility as well as (somehow) burial. Overall this song seems to express a reconciliation of the creationist view that the world could have been created at any point “with a history” (as Augustine said, “the world was created not in time, but together with time”), so it’s compatible with any longer term view, but the lyric carries this to its logical conclusion in the last stanza, evoking the perpetual recreation as each new day is created afresh. |
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