Hi CobaltBlue; Re interpreting the bible... Here's an example of an academic interpreting Grateful Dead lyrics (which are obviously more accessible to us than ancient bible prophesies retranslated from an obscure language several times over):
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The music of the Grateful Dead and the lyrics of Robert Hunter open up spaces within the work of art they form together that make textual interpretation of the lyrics futile. The lyrics function not as an absolute that is stated, but as a tool for semiosis--at every concert, they can and do mean something different according to how the variable parts in the music change. Every time a song is performed, a different set of potential meanings that are inherent in the piece will be actualized for a different audience.
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arts.ucsc.edu
The problem with interpreting things that are written by living authors is that they can show you up. Here the author of the lyrics to "Franklin's Tower", in response to the above analysis, shows the song to be a rather patriotic tribute to the United States' 200th birthday (and what could be more suitable to the Right Wing Extremist Thread):
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Since the concluding remark of your essay stated that the Grateful Dead songs are "meaningless" I choose to reply by explicating one of your examples: "Franklin's Tower." I do this reluctantly because I feel that a straightforward statement of my original intent robs the listener of personal associations and replaces them with my own. I may know where they come from, but I don't know where they've been. My allusions are, admittedly, often not immediately accessible to those whose literary resources are broadly different than my own, but I wouldn't want my listeners' trust to be shaken by an acceptance of the category "meaningless" attached to a bundle of justified signifiers whose sources happen to escape the scope of simplistic reference.
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note that this song appeared in 1975, the year after my son was born and the year before the American Bicentennial. Both facts are entirely relevant. The allusion to the Liberty Bell and the situation of the Philadelphia Congress in the hometown of Ben Franklin has not gone unnoticed by other commentators. This song is a birthday wish both for my son and for my country, each young and subject to the winds of vicissitude. Individual and collective freedom, liberty, conscience, all that is conjured by those concepts, is suggested in the image of the tolling bell.
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arts.ucsc.edu
Correctly interpreting stuff that was written, purposely to be mysterious, several thousand years ago, by a culture almost completely alien to our own is impossible. The best that we can hope for is to see our own face in the looking glass.
The fact is that Americans can't even figure out the lyrics to modern songs written by Australians, and both supposedly share the same culture and language. The meaning of just a few words make the song completely obscure:
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Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover
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home3.ecore.net
-- Carl |
