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Re: Re: a question of meaning
Yep. replying to my own message...
Wow, I was spurned to get out the old FFR and listen for myself to Moth.
Isn't it great what good musicians we have in OTR? I mean you hear a song a
million times and you can still get fresh emotion out of it.
If anyone cares, *this* is what I get out of it. *This* is where I am right
now. *This* is what Moth means to me. (just thinking of Kevin Spacey in
American Beauty there for a minute with the emphases).
So when she/he says:
"Isaac's Knife can cut away
all the poisoned yesterdays." It means taking faith (trust if you will)
that is so big as to allow someone to kill you and using that same principle
to get rid of all the guilt and regret that holds you back. One strong image
throughout Linford's writing is the motif of allowing a part of yourself to
die so that a better part may live--or the idea of putting to death the
things you so much want to live because they are the selfish parts and limit
your growth. In religious terms isn't this called "dying unto yourself"? In
this sense, Isaac's knife is a powerful tool and it *does* become his. I mean
after all, if I'm going to allow someone to kill me, then that weapon in a
sense becomes mine--I give the power to use it. And John mentioned that too.
The image becomes much more powerful when it is an implied one. It says so
much in so few words. Genius? Yeah.
Then the song continues:
"and the anger
ease it down
into the ocean
let it drown" Another Christian reference to washing away your sins? Anger
is definitely a sin when left unchecked and the idea of "easing" it down is
so counter to anger in and of itself. Doesn't the word anger just evoke
tones and emotions quite polar to the word ease? It does for me.
then:
"as far as east is
from the west
I let you go
I know it's best" is yet another Christian principle that offers a human
perspective on the forgiveness of Christ. We cannot fathom how far east is
from the west. In fact the idea is limitless. This is how far away God puts
your sins when you ask for forgiveness from them. In fact, there is a song
we used to sing in choir about the "sea of forgetfulness"--a place where your
sins go when you are forgiven. "What sins are you talking about. I don't
remember them anymore..." You get the idea.
I could go on, but I think I've given enough time here. Just to sum it all
up, Moth speaks to me about Christian forgiveness and the Biblical principle
that we shouldn't get bogged down with our past. If we live our lives
feeling guilty about things that God has forgiven us for, then we will be
useless to ourselves and each other. "There's no saviour hanging on this
cross" in no certain terms is saying stop trying to make yourself a martyr.
Christ already died for these sins--you don't have to. Tom Waits put it
rather succinctly with "come down off the cross, we can use the wood."
I'm also not too blind to see that there are other images in the song. I
picked out the ones that mean the most to me. I can infer peripheral meaning
out of the rest, but it doesn't stand out as much. If anyone can add or
clarify by taking away from this, please do. I just find this music deeply
personal and most of you probably do too. That's what makes it good IMHO.
-)v(
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