Ladder Song?
"No one knows where the ladder goes. You're going to lose what you love the most. You're not alone in anything. You're not unique in dying."
Perhaps the ladder represents continued burdening, wising (of age), getting more challenges (in life?), etc.? The higher up you go, the harder it is to continue. The harder it is to keep on climbing farther and farther up it. Your hands get sore, you slowly lose your determination to get all the way up. As you get more burdened and wiser, perhaps, you begin to lose things. You lose your purpose, what drives you. You lose your sanity, your individuality. Your ego of individuality in that, as you keep climbing, all you know is your problem, your burdens, your "ladder". Eventually, you could will lose sight of why you're even continuing, why you're continuing to climb up it. It's not unusual for people to lose hope, and perhaps, let go of the ladder. But that hurts. It hurts when you hit the ground, hard. I actually watched this, when referring to this video of the song (it's nice having lyrics so that I don't have to listen to certain parts over and over again). You see how the man on the ladder seems to be ascending into light? Perhaps that's the "resolution". There's no such thing as perfection nor equality, and as long as that holds true, there will always be problems to face. But this song, this picture, is saying that, although the ladder may never terminate, you are still ascending into light. You're slowly ascending into inner peace, although you may still have problems.
Yeah, nobody knows where the ladder goes. It may lead you to the your "resolution", if you are one of the few to preserve on, continuing to climb the ladder until you "reach" it. Possibly, your "resolution" will make things worse, perhaps better. Nobody knows. I doubt that everything would be the same, prior and after climbing the ladder, though. I like to think that things will get better if you climb the ladder. You see those people, in the picture, not on the ladder? It looks like they're just wandering aimlessly, doesn't it?
"I want to fly in your silver ship. Let Jesus hang and Buddha sit."
It's difficult climbing up the ladder, with your burdening thoughts and such. Silver is often represented as a precious metal, no? But not as precious as gold. Silver tarnishes, which is why it isn't as highly prized. (leading up to something)
Of course, you want the easy way out. You don't want to keep climbing the difficult ladder. You can't afford to lose your footings. It must be miserable, time slowly wearing away your determination and individuality. You want a ship that will make you soar towards your resolution, the easy way out. Just want to stop the suffering and the pain of going through your mental (or/and physical?) journey up the ladder. I don't know about you, but when I heard that, I was thinking a rocket ship. Rocket ships only go up, right? Unless, of course, they have a malfunction and come plummeting towards the ground again. I believe that silver represents that, although it would be nice to take the tempting ship straight up to your "resolution", silver eventually tarnishes. Your journey up the ladder (not flying through the ship) will, well, for a lack of better words, make a man out of you. I mean, you can't solve a problem as well as you could have if you had taken the long way up. "Sometimes, the hard way is the only way to go." Maybe your quick way to get to your "resolution", your silver ship, will eventually go sour and you'll regret not going up the ladder. Of course, unless you are too ignorant of your own true feelings (Can you Face Your True Feelings? lol see what I did there smilies/icon_ninja.gif) to realize that for yourself.
"Let Jesus hang and Buddha sit" leads back to that, actually. It's easier to leave your problems and burdens alone, ignore them, right? Perhaps the speaker is going through the period of mind where he believes that leaving your problems be is for the best. Taking a break from climbing the ladder. But you can't really stay in one place in the ladder without really advancing somewhere, can you? I mean, what's the point of just standing in one place? When you realize that, it's when you are out of that stage of mind and you continue to either preserve 'till the top of the ladder (or plummet down the the bottom).
"The days are long now."
(I think that this song is being sung as the speaker continues climbing up the ladder.) Well, as you begin to ascend up the ladder, your moral, concentration, individuality, and determination are deteriorating. How far can you go up on the long, hard, journey of life and enlightenment? As you lose concentration and determination (and others), you feel as the days get longer. They drag on. "Time flies when you're having fun." You keep on going up the ladder, losing track of time, your determination, your individuality... You lose your purpose to going up the ladder, making time take longer to pass.
"If I (have) got to go first, I'll do it on my terms."
Your life is like unexplored lands; completely uncharted. It's up to you (the cartographer?) to discover your own life. Naturally, you do it on your own terms. You, through your journey on the ladder, discover your strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, you FIND yourself. You're the first one out there, right? Really, there's no one else. Unless, of course, people begin delving into your life and your privacy. But they can't find out anything that you haven't "mapped out" first. So the speaker is "going first" on his ladder. He'll discover himself on his own terms, at his own pace. Him saying this tips off that there's someone saying otherwise, right? Of course, there are people that can go up their ladders faster than the speaker, slower, at the same speed. These people try to compare the speaker to them, but it doesn't really work like that. You'll discover yourself on your own terms; your own pace, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Don't listen to them. Possibly, these people are just rushing up the ladder. Or maybe they, mentally, believe they're going quickly, discovering themselves, quickly making progress with their burdens, unintentionally lying to themselves. This really just slows down how much progress you make up the ladder, doesn't it.
"You can say you're the first to know. Bought a mantra, to concentrate, car alarm, or hissing snake."
You're the first to know. You're the first to know about yourself. You're the first to find out who you love, what you care about, what you want to do. You can also say you're the last, right? If nobody has individuality, climbing up the ladder, then you're all the same. Remember how we were talking about solipsism, and then I told you about how there was a term pretty much defining everything we had talked about? If I remember correctly, you said something along the lines of that there's very little room for "original" thought anymore.
This is halfway through the song; progressed a decent length up the ladder. This speaker must be beginning to notice himself unravel by now. Needs something to keep him going; he's beginning to forget his purpose and "duty" to go up the ladder.
"I know, now, how it's going to turn (out). Now, you got to calm down or I'll lose my place."
You're probably doubting yourself by now, (rightly, possibly not rightly) questioning yourself and your abilities. Who wouldn't be, after this long odyssey and how far the speaker has come so far. The speaker doesn't say how it's going to turn out (what he thinks, at least). Maybe this is to create a feeling of generalization? As in, anybody could be the speaker? Pick one person off the street randomly and they could be the speaker, going up their ladder.
But you can't lose faith and determination. Without those, you'll panic (or just slowly decline...) and lose your place. You can't make a journey like this while questioning yourself the entire time. It just doesn't work out. This sounds like a pivotal journey in the speaker's lifetime. I mean, you can't go around, thinking/knowing that you won't make it, while half-heartedly still trying. smilies/icon_lol.gif Doesn't work like that!
He refers to "you". Maybe he's isolated? The speaker feels lonely and begins referring to himself as "you"? Or maybe he's speaking directly to the reader, which as I said, could be anybody.
"See now, a star's born. Looks just like a blood orange. Don't it just make you want to cry?"
Maybe he's seeing his "resolution". He's watching as his "resolution" seems like a disappointment, everything he's been trying for seems to be useless. He's beginning to see a new "life" perhaps, a new star being born. But his journey up the ladder has worn him down and the speaker doesn't see it like he thought he would. The wording implies that there's a star being born, but instead sees it like a blood orange. Which is significantly less incredible than a star being born.
"Well, I know when it's finally done. This whole life's a hallucination."
<.< >.> Solipsism, anyone? Depends what you consider a "life". In this case, he could be referring to "life" as the ladder. He's realizing that his whole ladder is all just a hallucination, none of it exists. Maybe it's all inside his head, nobody has done a thing to him. He's making his own problems and barriers up as he goes on. See what I'm saying? Perfection and inner peace is boring to humans. We try to make up our own problems, turn petty ones into large- scale scandals, lie to ourselves saying that there is a problem when there isn't anything. He's finally reached the "end?" of his ladder. It's done, and he's finally realized that he's been making up this stuff for himself to have a challenge in life. But after he's done lying to himself, his journey is done.
"You're not alone in anything. You're not alone in trying to be."
You're not alone. You're not the only one lying to yourself. Not the only one climbing the ladder of your own self-made reality. Your hallucination, I guess. I like how the last chord of the song has a bittersweet mood to it. You know how I said that I may not be as happy as I would have been if I had never started thinking about philosophy, but I'm more satisfied with everything? I think that this speaker may be reaching that. He's stopped lying to himself, stopped trying to convince himself of his lies of life. And that alone is a happiness by itself. Bittersweet, of course.
After words-
smilies/icon_smile.gif I wasn't really planning to do the entire thing... but I know how much you love my responses, so I tried to make this as long as possible. I didn't want to be too incredibly repetitive, so the responses get shorter as you go on. smilies/icon_sweatdrop.gif Sorry 'bout that.
Maybe you can tell that I really have brought in some of my own experiences into it. Meh, maybe I didn't. Really depends on how you look at it.
smilies/icon_gonk.gif There were certain passages that... well, everything "spoke to me" but I couldn't make sense of nearly all of it. Some stuff seems completely random and out of place, but at the same time, it just fits. See what I mean...?
Man, the meaning of everything I was saying really changed over the period of me writing this. Hope it still makes sense and that you like it.
Oh, and thank you for introducing me to Bright Eyes. They're really inspirational.
As you say, Peace out!
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