Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage...
Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage...
Someone will say what is lost can never be saved...
Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage...
Smashing Pumpkins.
This chorus could sum up LOST.
All the main characters led not "great" lives. They have had professional triumphs, but led painfully lonely personal lives. They may have had criminal pasts or mental issues which led to painfully lonely lives.
One could see the analogy of dropping broken spirited individuals onto an island to see how they interact with each other.
Daniel used a lab rat to experiment with conscious time travel. In the end, it ruined his and his girlfriend's minds.
The analogy could go further to explain that the whole LOST experience could have been the tortured lost mind of Daniel after subjecting himself to his own experimental backlash.
The conflicting science in the show is the conflicting scientific principles colliding in Daniel's fragile mind which could not explain how his girlfriend was permanently injured. The idea of his step-father, Widmore, being an evil incarnate or his mother being a controlling soul trying to isolate him from the real world may have been phobia and paranoia of a comatose mind. For Daniel broke away from both his parents by imagining himself going back (in time) to an island to "rescue" plane crash victims.
Except, there were plane crash victims to save. Daniel's mind experiments may have unlocked a portal to an alternative universe or dimension which he could interact with the lost souls of Flight 815 as they journeyed through the after life. Daniel in essence was a hitch hiker on others cosmic journey in time and space. The afterlife has no physics or rules so it was hard for an analytical mind like Daniel's to cope with this new reality. A reality that his mind recognized but the other people he had mental contact with did not. The main characters were not aware that they were dead until the end. But instead of being upset by the news, the characters seemed surreal and content by their fate. They did not question how or why they died, or even where they were - - - - it was like a burden was lifted from each of the them with a large sigh of relief. Their experiment or journey was over. They were no longer rats in a cage for survival. They could move on to an eternal retirement.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, May 25, 2015
Sunday, December 1, 2013
MUSICAL CLUES
Music that was played on the series was speculated by some viewers to be hidden clues.
For example, in the Season 2 episode, "The Hunting Party" Jack faces a major problem as he wakes to find a gun wielding Michael, who leaves to find Walt, who kidnapped by the Others. With the help of Locke and Sawyer, Jack heads out to bring Michael back before he is killed by the natives.
During this episode, the music playing in the Hatch was "Fall on Me", by Pousette-Dar Band.
The lyrics may be the clues:
Fall, fall on me
If you're gonna fall
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
I can see the sorrow in you're eyes
I can feel you're heart wondering why
If you're gonna fall,
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
Now you feel
you've lost all reason
can't face another day
when it's despair
it's just a season
that comes and goes away
If you're gonna fall
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
If you're go'in down
hold on to me
when you got a soul
that shines on
so much love can't help but turn mine on,
If you're gonna fall,
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
Fall, fall on me
Two things come to mind in reading the lyrics:
1) when a castaway like Michael loses all reason (his anger to get back his son), it is just another seasonal plot point that "comes and goes away."
2) the reference to "a soul" prequels death, but in Michael's case even Walt's love for him cannot turn his soul from a trapped whisper to the sideways world reunion.
The first comment reinforces that retrospective feeling for some that LOST had no continuity from season to season; there was no clearly defined plot structure; it was a free form series with more story arc dead ends than well constructed story telling of an epic tale.
The second comment reinforces that the characters were not whom they seem to represent, either in human form or as lost spirits trapped in a transitional world of the living and the dead. Many of the main characters brutally failed in their actions on the island, but still received a happy reunion in the after life sideways church. It would seem that failing together was better than failing alone.
For example, in the Season 2 episode, "The Hunting Party" Jack faces a major problem as he wakes to find a gun wielding Michael, who leaves to find Walt, who kidnapped by the Others. With the help of Locke and Sawyer, Jack heads out to bring Michael back before he is killed by the natives.
During this episode, the music playing in the Hatch was "Fall on Me", by Pousette-Dar Band.
The lyrics may be the clues:
Fall, fall on me
If you're gonna fall
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
I can see the sorrow in you're eyes
I can feel you're heart wondering why
If you're gonna fall,
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
Now you feel
you've lost all reason
can't face another day
when it's despair
it's just a season
that comes and goes away
If you're gonna fall
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
If you're go'in down
hold on to me
when you got a soul
that shines on
so much love can't help but turn mine on,
If you're gonna fall,
fall on me
and if you're go'in down
hold on to me
Fall, fall on me
Two things come to mind in reading the lyrics:
1) when a castaway like Michael loses all reason (his anger to get back his son), it is just another seasonal plot point that "comes and goes away."
2) the reference to "a soul" prequels death, but in Michael's case even Walt's love for him cannot turn his soul from a trapped whisper to the sideways world reunion.
The first comment reinforces that retrospective feeling for some that LOST had no continuity from season to season; there was no clearly defined plot structure; it was a free form series with more story arc dead ends than well constructed story telling of an epic tale.
The second comment reinforces that the characters were not whom they seem to represent, either in human form or as lost spirits trapped in a transitional world of the living and the dead. Many of the main characters brutally failed in their actions on the island, but still received a happy reunion in the after life sideways church. It would seem that failing together was better than failing alone.
Friday, July 5, 2013
A POET
During any holiday, American radio stations play classic rock and roll tunes because most parents and adults are driving to and from their weekend destinations.
So it is not surprising to hear a classic like "American Pie" by Don McLean.
In junior high, my science teacher spent an entire class period explaining the lyrics to this song to us. It was an important piece of music that incorporated a key moment in his past. Music does creates markers of memories to people.
"The Day the Music Died, " as stated in McLean's 1971 song, was about an aviation accident that occurred on February 3, 1959, near Clear Lake, Iowa. The accident killed rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Jiles "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and the pilot, Roger Peterson. After terminating his partnership with The Crickets, Buddy Holly assembled a new band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, to play on the '"Winter Dance Party" tour. The tour also featured rising artist Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, who were promoting their own recordings as well. The tour was to cover 24 Midwestern cities in three weeks.
Kids today may not realize that their Disneyifed pop music has its roots in a turbulent crossover in the 1950s when blues, country and old standards became electrified by a new brand of rebels called rock and rollers. Buddy Holly was one of the new pioneers of the rock sound that defined a new generation.
Although McLean dedicated the American Pie album to Buddy Holly, none of the musicians in the plane crash are identified by name in the song itself. When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean replied, "It means I never have to work again." Later, he more seriously stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me.... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."
McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song lyrics, such as saying, "They’re beyond analysis. They’re poetry." He has acknowledged that he did first learn about Buddy Holly's death while folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 3, 1959, (the line "February made me shiver/with every paper I'd deliver"). He also stated in an editorial published on the 50th anniversary of the crash in 2009 that writing the first verse of the song exorcised his long-running grief over Holly's death:
A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And, I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance, and...
Maybe they'd be happy for a while
But, February made me shiver with every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep - I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside the day the music died
It is interesting to note that an artist such as McLean is still careful to not explain his lyrics. He wants people to interpret them in their own way. He may have been inspired by actual events, but may have wrapped all his childhood memories into a collage of images that only he will truly understand.
There was a passage that caught my ear:
And, there we were, all in one place - a generation Lost in Space
With no time left to start again
So, come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick - Jack Flash sat on a Candlestick, 'cause...
Fire is the Devil's only friend
And, as I watched him on the stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell could break that satan's spell
And, as the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I saw...
Satan laughing with delight the day the music died
He was singing, bye bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing...
This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die
None of the musicians who died that fateful day were named Jack. Jack is from a nursery rhyme. And nursery rhymes are the first fantasies told to little children as they fade off to dream.
The main characters' parents would have been the start of the Boomer generation, the first generation of rock music. The main characters would have had this sound in their memories growing up as children. In the LOST series, most of the music bridges were from the 1960s (except for Charlie's own music). The mood of the series from its background music is like it was frozen in time in the 1960s just as McLean's musical memory seized up when the pioneers died in a plane crash.
There are many similarities between "American Pie" and LOST: a plane crash, time standing still, death, and symbolic images.
The LOST characters were all in one place, a cast of lost people in a generation that should have been on Easy Street living the American dream. When they reached the island, there was no time to start their lives again. Fire was an important symbol tied to Jacob. It was in his statue home, and the campfire when he told the remaining candidates that they needed to act so their friends deaths would not be in vain. Jacob was called The Devil. He did cast spells over the Others and Ben to do his work. And if Jack had to be nimble and quick to defeat MIB, it was his sacrifice in the island succession ritual that allowed the other survivors passage to the next life. He knew it in the bamboo field that that was the day he died.
Many ancient cultures believed that human spirits would wander and haunt the world unless they "accepted" their own deaths. How souls would block out the memory of their own demise is unclear. How souls would want to change the outcome of their deaths for a greater purpose or remorse for things not accomplished is also unknown. Modern society does not stress the importance of the ancient belief of preparation for one's after life. Kings and Pharaohs built grand tombs and stockpiled it with weapons, food, gold, servants and livestock for the journey to the next level of existence. Rock and roll led to rebellious freedom from past tradition. It allowed the Boomers to reach new heights of accomplishment, but also new levels of selfish behavior. One mantra was Live for Today.
Many LOST fans are still melancholy about the end of the series. Everything must end in order to have a new beginning. They miss the rhythm of the series, not caring about the symbolism; they miss the wild ride, not whether the story lines made sense. They still wait since the day their show died.
So it is not surprising to hear a classic like "American Pie" by Don McLean.
In junior high, my science teacher spent an entire class period explaining the lyrics to this song to us. It was an important piece of music that incorporated a key moment in his past. Music does creates markers of memories to people.
"The Day the Music Died, " as stated in McLean's 1971 song, was about an aviation accident that occurred on February 3, 1959, near Clear Lake, Iowa. The accident killed rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Jiles "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and the pilot, Roger Peterson. After terminating his partnership with The Crickets, Buddy Holly assembled a new band consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, to play on the '"Winter Dance Party" tour. The tour also featured rising artist Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, who were promoting their own recordings as well. The tour was to cover 24 Midwestern cities in three weeks.
Kids today may not realize that their Disneyifed pop music has its roots in a turbulent crossover in the 1950s when blues, country and old standards became electrified by a new brand of rebels called rock and rollers. Buddy Holly was one of the new pioneers of the rock sound that defined a new generation.
Although McLean dedicated the American Pie album to Buddy Holly, none of the musicians in the plane crash are identified by name in the song itself. When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean replied, "It means I never have to work again." Later, he more seriously stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me.... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."
McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song lyrics, such as saying, "They’re beyond analysis. They’re poetry." He has acknowledged that he did first learn about Buddy Holly's death while folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 3, 1959, (the line "February made me shiver/with every paper I'd deliver"). He also stated in an editorial published on the 50th anniversary of the crash in 2009 that writing the first verse of the song exorcised his long-running grief over Holly's death:
A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And, I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance, and...
Maybe they'd be happy for a while
But, February made me shiver with every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep - I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride
Something touched me deep inside the day the music died
It is interesting to note that an artist such as McLean is still careful to not explain his lyrics. He wants people to interpret them in their own way. He may have been inspired by actual events, but may have wrapped all his childhood memories into a collage of images that only he will truly understand.
There was a passage that caught my ear:
And, there we were, all in one place - a generation Lost in Space
With no time left to start again
So, come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick - Jack Flash sat on a Candlestick, 'cause...
Fire is the Devil's only friend
And, as I watched him on the stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell could break that satan's spell
And, as the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I saw...
Satan laughing with delight the day the music died
He was singing, bye bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing...
This'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die
None of the musicians who died that fateful day were named Jack. Jack is from a nursery rhyme. And nursery rhymes are the first fantasies told to little children as they fade off to dream.
The main characters' parents would have been the start of the Boomer generation, the first generation of rock music. The main characters would have had this sound in their memories growing up as children. In the LOST series, most of the music bridges were from the 1960s (except for Charlie's own music). The mood of the series from its background music is like it was frozen in time in the 1960s just as McLean's musical memory seized up when the pioneers died in a plane crash.
There are many similarities between "American Pie" and LOST: a plane crash, time standing still, death, and symbolic images.
The LOST characters were all in one place, a cast of lost people in a generation that should have been on Easy Street living the American dream. When they reached the island, there was no time to start their lives again. Fire was an important symbol tied to Jacob. It was in his statue home, and the campfire when he told the remaining candidates that they needed to act so their friends deaths would not be in vain. Jacob was called The Devil. He did cast spells over the Others and Ben to do his work. And if Jack had to be nimble and quick to defeat MIB, it was his sacrifice in the island succession ritual that allowed the other survivors passage to the next life. He knew it in the bamboo field that that was the day he died.
Many ancient cultures believed that human spirits would wander and haunt the world unless they "accepted" their own deaths. How souls would block out the memory of their own demise is unclear. How souls would want to change the outcome of their deaths for a greater purpose or remorse for things not accomplished is also unknown. Modern society does not stress the importance of the ancient belief of preparation for one's after life. Kings and Pharaohs built grand tombs and stockpiled it with weapons, food, gold, servants and livestock for the journey to the next level of existence. Rock and roll led to rebellious freedom from past tradition. It allowed the Boomers to reach new heights of accomplishment, but also new levels of selfish behavior. One mantra was Live for Today.
Many LOST fans are still melancholy about the end of the series. Everything must end in order to have a new beginning. They miss the rhythm of the series, not caring about the symbolism; they miss the wild ride, not whether the story lines made sense. They still wait since the day their show died.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
S6E12 MUSICIAL NOTE
In the episode, Daniel Widmore party was to launch his attempt to combine "classical music with rock n roll."
I doubt if the LOST writers actually knew this: in the 1970s, there was an industry rumor that there was a patron who had the same idea. He/she secretly funded a British band to combine elements of classical music and rock to create a new genre. The band was called Supertramp.
The band have several successful FM singles, especially from the album "Breakfast in America."
I doubt if the LOST writers actually knew this: in the 1970s, there was an industry rumor that there was a patron who had the same idea. He/she secretly funded a British band to combine elements of classical music and rock to create a new genre. The band was called Supertramp.
The band have several successful FM singles, especially from the album "Breakfast in America."
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