That man dressed in the slick evening suit at the swanky bar is sitting down swirling his cocktail around in a glass, staring into it in deep thought. He came there thinking he was going to be the debonair sophisticate that he was born to be (as if any kid grows up wanting to be that), but instead he has caught some feelings. There is a battle going on in his mind, a pull between wanting everything the world has to offer, and something else drawing him beyond where he is now, towards some other place in the sky.
If you drown out the party music, and pay close attention to his innermost thoughts, you will notice something. FKJ certainly noticed something, and he made a song about it, this song. Just admire the way the disparate thoughts are portrayed – the pauses between lyrics of the verse, that’s how we think when we’re in this state. It speaks to the poetic nature of our thoughts, the musicality of our subconscious, the meandering ridges of our brains. Just beautiful.
The keys of the chorus are also unforgettable. They are like the soul of this man trying to jump to reach the skyline. As the song progresses, they go up the scale, and by 3:01 he is getting closer, trying harder, reaching further away from where he started towards a place that will supposedly give him inner peace. Of course, like all humans do, he runs out of steam, panting for breath, ready to curse the sky in sour-grapes fashion.
Then at the end of the striving and the neurotic introspection and self-centred searching for self-actualisation, another voice speaks, not his own, the voice of an angel descending from that same sky to tell him;
“you see a skyline inside”
Next time you see a man like this at the bar, don’t pity him. At least he is in the ring. Of course he will lose the battle, and also the war, but what a glorious loss it will be. Like Abraham of the scriptures, he will earn his blessing. Yet there is another more important reason why you shouldn’t pity him – in a sense, that man is both you and me.
poetic reverb 