I think one of my goals for this year is to learn how to play a song, and I think this is the song I want to learn. Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts by Wolf Parade continues to be where I'm at mentally, even years after my first listen. I'm bad at interpreting lyrics, but I think the author writes in a vague way that allows for personalized interpretations, so even if I'm wrong, I think it's allowed lol.
The title is fuzzily base on two ideas. The first idea: The Sons and Daughters of Liberty, the activist groups in early American history that fought for freedom from British colonization.
The second idea: a Hungry Ghost, an idea from Buddhism and Chinese culture that describes an entity that is driven to consume to fill an eternal, unquenchable hunger.
With the two ideas together, you have someone who fights for freedom, but their goals are always out of reach, in a torturous Sisyphean kinda way.
I feel like this song describes how someone like this processes their condition and finds a way to keep moving forward, even if it doesn't make sense. It's definitely not a song that tries to play life-coach and tells you how to fix all your problems. I feel like its purpose is to acknowledge a very human thing we all pretend doesn't exist.
Sorry for the low quality live-version video, but it has the energy I like the most. I like it very fast :)
Lyrics (With removed repetition):
I got a hand
So I got a fist
So I got a plan
It's the best that I can do
Now we'll say, "It's in God's hands"
But God doesn't always have the best goddamn plans, does he?
I ain't quite the beauty
Who pulls out two guns and shoots at the pretty, pretty view
I gotta keep thinking things, hunters and kings to block out the view
I gotta get a new bell to ring
A new song to sing
A steady hand to ring
A readiness of things
A new plan to bring to the people
People I can trick them into thinking anything
Oh-ho, and rust, it's just right in the light, it's gold, it's golden
Oh-ho, I got water and holes in my hands
I'm a digger of holes in the land, of holes
And you know it's the easiest way
So I go
La-la-la, la-la-la
I got water and I got holes, oh
La-la-la, la-la-la
The Sons and daughters of hungry ghosts, oh
La-la-la, la-la-la
I can't believe in the guns, I can't believe in the view
I sing, sing, sing, la-la-la, la-la-la
I can't believe in those hunters and kings and you know
La-la-la, la-la-la
I got a new plan to bring
I got a new song to sing, it goes
La-la-la, la-la-la
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