Thick As A Brick - interpretation

 

The song opens with just a little bit about the poem. It says that he doesn't mind if you don't read it (sit it out). His poem (words) may not say too too much (whisper), but your inability to access it, to learn from it (deafness), hear it's message, that says a ton (shout) about you. He says that the poem may make you feel, but it can't make you think, that's something you have to do for yourself. As if to illustrate this, he gives an image of you going out and acting on impulse (sperm in gutter, love in sink).

Thus, you ride out into the fields to act like animals (as opposed to people), and the people who guide you (wise men) cannot empathise, because they don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick.

The sand castle virtues refers to entreprenurial morality (an interesting concept), but in the confusion caused to religion (and other factors), making up the moral melee, cause this morality to be washed away, in favor of immorality. As the moral melee makes it's "elastic" retreat, it leaves behind a "newfangled" conformism.

BUT!, adherents to this conformism wear out their shoes, and get sunburned, and the whole wise man deal from before.

Now we get to his lover, who is far away, and so he sees himself as being unreal (a bad dream that I just had today). Society's response is one of indifference (shake your head/said it's a shame).

He wishes (odd for an eight year old, albeit a mature one) to go back to his toddler days, where he had no worries and did not have to deal with TRUTH, and people would sing him songs, and everything was wonderful.

 

Now we move on to society's involvement. When he was born, they saw not a child, but a soldier, even though he is still young (as evidenced by such signs of immaturity as pimples and bed-wetting). They chew him up, teach him how to succeed in our fake world (make a man of him), and spit him out, and none the better for it.

Next, he grows up, and goes off to war. The next lyrical bit talks about how when he comes back, poets write about him, and painters paint him. He is the do-er, they are the think-ers, and society does not have room for both. As the last rays of hope (failing light) give light to (illuminate) the victory of the do-ers (mercenary's creed). The next bit is slightly unclear (sorry all).

However, the poet lifts his pen while the soldier sheaths his sword, meaning that society makes one last attempt to live by the pen rather than the sword (think: "the pen is mightier than the sword").

Referencing back to entreprenurial morality, the son (youngest of the family) takes control and attempts a moral life, daring society to make him conform (tardy tide... wash them all aside).
The next part (yes, I am getting tired here, and will be less specific here on out), gets us to the point where we see the poet sheath his pen, and the soldier lift his sword (violence over politics). However, the son then puts it to his old-fashioned, violence oriented (or something like that) father.

Now the father dies, and the son is on his own. He now has to decide what he wants to do with his life (does he want to be his father, or right his father's wrongs).

Later we learn that he is upper class, bringing his upbringing to the lower classes, trying to mend them to be like him. He has become his father. He is going to teach the criminals that they are wrong, like he did with his dad (back when he "put him to the run."). He feels, however, that he is above judgement himself ("judge you all... no one judges me").

Then we get a third person view of what he did, silently watching him be the very person he abhorred in his father. We then get some examples of his upper-class status, and watch and let him bend the rules.

The next paragraph is distinct, speaking of how society is looking for a hero, a superman, to come lead them out of their troubles. It is set apart, and I'm not sure quite how it relates to the story of the son.

Then we get back to the son, how he had all the advantages, and was always treated as superior. BUT, because of this, he can no longer call on anyone to save him, because he sees himself as better than everyone.

And now I understand, he is calling on superman and the like to save him, because they are the only figures he sees as being above him.

Biggles is a fictitious pilot. Biggles and the sportsmen, who were his childhood idols, are all too self-occupied to be his role model, and so he is alone in society

Part 2 to come, hopefully.

 

Very nice. Perhaps I can add a few thoughts using your interpretation.

 

For "The next bit is slightly unclear (sorry all)" the lyrics are:

 

 

To me this means that the son / soldier has returned home to find;

This fits your story (Ian's story???) except for your timing of the death of the father. I think that part of the song is a reflection after the fact. The father has died, the son has taken over the business and is realizing that he is (turning into) his father. He is questioning his decisions because this is not who he thought he was going to become. He has become trapped by that which he despised in his youth (society, responsiibility, etc.). Can he escape this fate? Does he want to?

 

I'm going to start part two, and I have an hour, so hopefully I'll finish it.  If not, I'll find time somehow:

 

have to agree with easy here.

 

a good read, adn I'll keep it in mind when listening to the album next time, and stat focussing on the lyrics aswell as the music.

 

That Biggles character was also portrayedf in French comic books , but only the frame of the 2nd WW, though. That's how I heard about it.

 

However I never had imagined so many books in such a wide frame.

 

He's probably the equivalent of Henri Verne's Bob Morane, who published around the same years an extended bibliography. Most people my age in Belgium and France must've read some 100 of his 200 books: This actually rocked by life around 9 to 12.