Keane - A bad dream
Introducción:
An Irish Airman foresees his Death, By William Butler Yeats
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
"A Bad Dream is the most emotional song on the record. It was based on a poem by W.B.Yeats, called "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death", and I think it also came from visiting lots of battlefields and graveyards and so in France, which sounds very morbid, but that's the kind of thing I like to do on holiday! I've just always been really affected by... I guess still being a relatively young man, I still have a lot of empathy of people of my age and even younger, who are going off to war; and I guess the idea of going off to war has been in the air for the last couple of years, with Afghanistan and Iraq particular. Those seem like very distant things, but I think in Europe in particular the Second World War is still something that still looms quite largely in a lot of people's minds, and it certainly should do. I'd also been reading a book called "The New Confessions" by William Boyd, in where the protagonist of the book goes up in a hot air balloon to film the front line, and he gets shot down and captured. It just made me think a lot of people when they go off as young men, and when they come back - even if it's a couple of years later it's like they've become old, and all the things they left behind have changed. And it's something that you can never ever go back to being young again. And I guess it's just a very sad song.
We wanted to get a balance between a kinda dream sequence - it starts very quietly, and I love the idea of being in a plane, like a Spitfire or something, being so high up in the sky that you can't hear the guns below you and so on. And it's almost got a serene silence which is what this Yeats poem seemed to really express. The song starts very quietly, but it gets huge and angry as it goes on - the big distorted washy piano sound in the middle is a pretty vast sound and it's I guess an attempt to express all that anger bursting out." - Tim - Podcast 3 (30th May 2006)
A Bad Dream
Why do I have to fly
Over every town up and down the line?
I'll die in the clouds above
And you that I defend, I do not love
I wake up, it's a bad dream
Noone on my side
I was fighting
But I just feel too tired
To be fighting
Guess I'm not the fighting kind
Where will I meet my fate?
Baby I'm a man, I was born to hate
And when will I meet my end?
In a better time you could be my friend
I wake up, it's a bad dream
Noone on my side
I was fighting
But I just feel too tired
To be fighting
Guess I'm not the fighting kind
Wouldn't mind it
If you were by my side
But you're long gone
Yeah you're long gone now
Where do we go?
I don't even know
My strange old face
And I'm thinking about those days
And I'm thinking about those days
I wake up, it's a bad dream
Noone on my side
I was fighting
But I just feel too tired
To be fighting
Guess I'm not the fighting kind
Wouldn't mind it
If you were by my side
But you're long gone
Yeah you're long gone now
¿Por qué tengo que volar
por encima de cada ciudad,
arriba y abajo del ecuador?
Moriría allá arriba en las nubes,
y tú, a quien defiendo, no te amaría.
Me despierto, es un mal sueño.
Nadie a mi lado.
Estaba luchando,
pero me siento tan cansado
para luchar.
Supongo no soy del tipo de los que luchan.
¿Donde hallaré mi destino?
Cariño, soy un hombre, nací para odiar.
¿Y cuando hallaré mi final?
En otros tiempos mejores, podrías haber sido mi amigo.
Me despierto, es un mal sueño.
Nadie a mi lado.
Estaba luchando,
pero me siento tan cansado
para luchar.
Supongo no soy del tipo de los que luchan.
No me importaría
si estuvieras a mi lado.
Pero te has ido lejos.
Sí, te has ido lejos ahora.
¿A donde vamos?
Ni siquiera lo sé.
Mi vieja y extraña cara.
Y estoy pensando en aquellos días.
Estoy pensando en aquellos días.
Me despierto, es un mal sueño.
Nadie a mi lado.
Estaba luchando,
pero me siento tan cansado
para luchar.
Espero no ser del tipo de los que luchan.
No me importaría
si estuvieras a mi lado.
Pero te has ido lejos.
Sí, te has ido lejos ahora.
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A bad dream, una canción sobre la guerra, claramente habla sobre estar luchando por algo que no se sabe si vale la pena, una lucha que cambia por completo lo que una persona es y se convierte en un extraño para si mismo, mas allá de que nuestra historia esta escrita con sangre, para mi interpretación se basa en la vida misma, el hecho de despertar día con día y no saber si lo que haces es lo correcto, si por lo que estas luchando realmente vale la pena, de seguir defendiendo a esas personas que están a nuestro alrededor y que solo logran engañarnos, para convertirnos en extraños y olvidar la esencia misma de lo que estamos haciendo, mi vídeo muestra eso, la idea del vídeo es dar esperanza y continuar, levantarte para seguir tu camino, dejar aquellas experiencias, después de despertar seguir adelante, cuando algo va mal, cuestionamos todos nuestros movimientos desde el principio, e de allí que empiece de noche mirando a las estrellas, tomando un viaje que podría no correspondernos, encontrándonos con gente que en un principio creemos que debemos hacer algo al respecto, sin embargo nos hundimos en problemas que no nos corresponden y encontramos quien nos ayude en algunos momentos para saber que lo que estamos haciendo es correcto, luchamos para conservar esos sentimientos, la escena después de que caen las bombas sobre los soldados, en cierto modo es solo la cuestión, ¿valió la pena?, y así concluye, despertando y mirando todo lo que se ha hecho por esa lucha, sin embargo el viaje aun continua en el amanecer, como en Saving Private Ryan las ultimas palabras del capitán Miller; earn it, la vida es un regalo, ganatelo.
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