about 'faith':
the most shocking/contradictory/almost alarming thing there, still today: "i went away alone with nothing left BUT FAITH".
just a minute, he says he does have it. so? because... well, faith is the thing you lose first, it's the thing you're not supposed to have anymore in that point... losing faith is the whole source of it all, the tragedy.
"there's nothing left BUT HOPE" - hope is another one. there's supposed to be no hope...
people with faith and hope, they shouldn't have reason to write that sort of things, they don't have to. if they do the words are not supposed to be reasl, just projections... of how it could be, how it is for someone else. because as long as you have faith and/or hope you're saved anyway... so why cry about it? you're ok... you'd like to say "ok nice, come back when you've lost that one too, let's talk more then".
i don't think i'll ever understand this. great lyrics but something's not real....
(i know i can't formulate this the way i'd want to... now i can see people coming around determined to beat me senseless for my all too blasphemous words... but i mean it, what i said. it's not...)
ok i see this was a poor choice of topic... so i guess i'll continue a monologue then.
because another thing: faith in what? there's got to be something, but i just find it strange that he would have had faith in anything then...
or it's just "faith in general" - but what's that anyway? or maybe it's kind of imaginary faith, like hoping that he would have faith in something, yearning for something to believe in? but he does say "with nothing left but faith"...
i'm ever so confused by this...
ok i'll just say that although there's definitely no question about it which one is a superior piece of lyrical poetry, still what comes to the subject itself i actually do agree a whole lot of more with trent reznor's view about the nature of faith:
this is the first day of my last days
i built it up now i take it apart climbed up real high now fall down real far
no need for me to stay the last thing left i just threw it away
i put my faith in god and my trust in you
now there's nothing more fucked up i could do
no?
My best analysis of Faith:
Pretty good song instrumentally, especially some of the live versions from the mid-'80s. Really cool guitar solos there. :lol:
right. :?
On a more serious note, I'll just say that I often don't have a clue what Robert is singing about. Heck, half the time I can't even understand what he's singing. And unfortunately, I've always been lazy about looking up the lyrics and learning them correctly. So I'm sure I've still got a few embarrassing interpretations of what he's saying.
About Faith, the song has never really made sense to me. It does seem contradictory, and it's always confused me. So when some people actually like they're completely moved by the lyrics of this song, I'm dumbfounded. I tend to appreciate things for their musical value anyway. After all, it was Friday I'm In Love and its catchy melodies that first grabbed my attention.
And something about the song Bloodflowers. Unless I'm remembering this wrong, Robert always mixes up the lyrics in the live versions â€" all this "always fade, never fade", "always die, never die," "sun always sets, sun never sets". Ok, maybe I'm just shamelessly bad with lyrics, but it seems like he randomly picks these phrases â€" so it's just not possible for the song to really make sense at all. Am I wrong?
The lyrics/feelings don't seem contradictory to me. Beyond all things there's always a faith in life, even at a subconscious level, even if people say they don't have faith in anything and are very depressed... (otherwise they would just die "like that").
In the Cure song, the idea of faith is faith in oneself, not in a god. So, beyond isolation, pain, sadness, the idea of faith is the last thing to hold onto. A projection or a wait to fool yourself (maybe) and gain time (time always has an effect, as JapaneseBaby pointed out in the first post).
Quote from: Descent on July 07, 2007, 00:55:10
Beyond all things there's always a faith in life, even at a subconscious level, even if people say they don't have faith in anything and are very depressed... (otherwise they would just die "like that").
i'm not entirely sure. there can be reasons other than this why people don't just die "like that". like, there can be things that make them feel they are somehow so "obliged to continue living", that they have no "right" to make another choice. and so they live on, even if they didn't really want to - they become numb and just continue, they are basically just waiting, killing out their time. i'm not so sure it has something to do with having faith (or hope either) in oneself or in life itself. i think it's more like some kind of self-preservation instinct on a very primary level, on the "animal level": your subconscious mind keep you going even if your conscious mind tells you otherwise. it's a bit similar to people in a coma. or it can be fear. not fear of god or anything, just a primal kind of fear. and also, i believe sometimes people don't just die simply because they don't know how. i know it sounds awkward and maybe lame too when put this way, but frankly it's not something you can practice in advance and/or become "good at". it can be a difficult art, so to speak.
to believe that there's a thing called faith: i think maybe it can also be the ultimate way to cheat oneself, it can be an illusion (like god). so yes, the lyrics are maybe not contradictory. instead, they can be scary.
i don't know.
Sometimes some people actually die ("like that") from losing their closest relative or their partner. That's what I had in mind. So they've completely lost everything, even that life instinct. And no matter how depressed other people can be with their social problems, it can't be as extreme as this !
Faith lyrics...scary. I don't know. It's maybe more malicious than commonly thought. Depression can also come from being frustrated with a fairly happy life (wanting much more), or too protected. It's not always sad events. Sometimes out of boredom people seek for pain and sadness.
Japanesebaby pretty much summed up everything id say on this, although i think the reason why the lyrics contradict themselves is almost like this kind of 'all or nothing', 'really good/really bad' idea that robert uses a lot in his lyrics.
E.g. "Lost forever in a happy crowd" emphasises the point so much more, gives the impression of being totally lost or unhappy, yet no one hears/notices/cares......
thats my interpretation, or maybe ive lost it?! :smth100
and yes faith is entirely conciously constucted from the human brain, when people say their faith got them through hard times, its like they convinced themselves it was true, to avoid dealing with any sort of reality, it allows people to find some sort of strange comfort from thinking 'oh, it was gods will' or whatever. Which to me seems kind of wrong, but you generally find realists are never happy people and to a certain extent we all live our own version of reality and block out certain things we dont want, to pretend they dont happen, thats something the human brain seems to do automatically....... and now i seem to have gone totally off the point, so ill stop..... ;)
i think the feeling of having "faith in life" equals with having something reasonable to do with your life, having something meaningful to spend it on. maybe it's not entirely same as boredom... or at least not all kinds of boredom equals to this. because people can be utterly bored but still have goals in life, plans and wishes in mind. so then it's just a matter of trying to find a way to achieve these. and yes, sometimes people want too much and become frusterated. but on the other end, if you have no plans or goals, nothing that you really wish for or nothing that really captivates your mind in a long run. then it can be scary to see other people believing in all those things, having so many reasons, having so many goals. it can be scary to see so much strenght in other people?
i guess that's what i meant with the lyrics being scary.
and so in 'faith' lyrics, maybe the duality/built-in contrasts (which strange_day pointed out) can be seen as an effort to try and observe this actually? some kind of meaninglessness of everything, some sort of "who cares" kind of attitude (which NB is not consciously chosen and thus nothing so superficial as being youthfully rebellious or anything), the "static", responseless state of all things around you. i mean the meaninglessness/goallessness of it all causes the extremes/the opposites to lose their meaning and so it's all translated into images that seem to contradict themselves and which are based on extremes contrasts in the same sentence. the extremes are there but considering how it all is, they nevertheless become just the same anyway.
or...?
anyway, i'd agree with strange_day. faith can be (or is) a form of pure self-suggestion that people just want to give a bit nicer name so that it would simply sound like something noble.
hmmm.. reading the lyrics again, they don't make a lot of sense. I mean you can't read them in the way you can read "Just Like Heaven" or "Open" and go "oh yeah.. i know what he's saying..."
I actually think that this is just a bunch of lines that have been put together because they fit aurally and look good on paper.. perhaps i'm being too harsh and it should be "paragraphs" put together, but you know what i mean.. there's no real thread of common thought to the lyrics other than it being about desparation or loss or fear or hopelessness
And yes the last lines contradict themselves... in the general sense of it all...
like you said, "I went away alone with nothing left but faith"??? what the hell, you would go away alone after losing your faith, not having it..
unless he's saying my life is nothing now, all i have is my faith. but what's the faith in? himself or a higher power..
don't get me wrong: it's awesome song though!!!
here are the lyrics for those that want to rekindle the love...
FAITH
catch me if i fall
i'm losing hold
i can't just carry on this way
and every time
i turn away
lose another blind game
the idea of perfection holds me...
suddenly i see you change
everything at once
the same
but the mountain never moves...
rape me like a child
christened in blood
painted like an unknown saint
there's nothing left but hope...
your voice is dead
and old
and always empty
trust in me through closing years
perfect moments wait...
if only we could stay
please
say the right words
or cry like the stone white clown
and stand
lost forever in a happy crowd...
no-one lifts their hands
no-one lifts their eyes
justified with empty words
the party just gets better and better...
i went away alone
with nothing left
but faith
"justified with empty words
the party just gets better and better" - To me, theres almost a sarcastic tone in that, which might have something to do with coming from the UK , i dont know. ;)
and this....
"i went away alone
with nothing left, but faith" - With this, it seems like hes denouncing faith itself as something thats merely useless, you can go away feeling nothing, but have faith and still have/feel nothing because its all false. This is how Robert probably felt at the time and probably does still feel to a point about the idea of having a particular faith.
Quote from: strange_day on July 09, 2007, 14:42:57
"i went away alone
with nothing left, but faith" - With this, it seems like hes denouncing faith itself as something thats merely useless, you can go away feeling nothing, but have faith and still have/feel nothing because its all false.
this is exactly what i was after! thanks for making me see my own thoughts clearly!
going away with nothing left but faith and knowing that even that doesn't mean a thing, that it's just another one of all those empty words.
(thanks strange_day!)
I agree with the viewpoint that he may be denouncing faith (and hope, for that matter) as useless after going away alone. I've always interpreted as the struggle to lift yourself out of whatever fog you're in. For example, Robert (or the character in the song) is so down, so lost that really the only thing he can try to cling to, as a safety net, is hope (the hope of getting better) and/or faith (faith in will to live, etc). Personally, I'm one of those folks who'd leave Caley dumbfounded at my connection to the lyrics because I've felt this exact way before (probably why I've interpreted the way I have). All things considered, however, this song is really really powerful musically.
Good topic!
Cheers.
I think that "Faith" is the ultimate song about despair. And the line "I went away alone, with nothing left but faith", in my opinion, is the most depressing words that Robert (or anyone else) ever wrote/sang.
Especially because when he say those words, he's in the strangest state of mind. A complete mess! He's so desperate that he ends up depending on something he doesn't believe! Most ironic too!
But "Faith" has much more meanings and "explanations" than this one.
I always think that any Cure song has 2 different points of view: Robert's view (why he wrote something, what does he mean etc) and the listener's view (we understand any song depending on our own experiences, we feel that some songs "talk" about something we did, felt etc)
Robert's view of "Faith" as he said: He wrote "Faith" because he admired people who believed in God, even if they depended on their faith and nothing more, nothing concrete. He couldn't do/understand that and he was sad about it. So "Faith" it's a kind of protest for the luck of Faith!!
He's also said that he wrote "Faith" after the death of some people that he loved and he was pissed off, because there was nothing he could do about it. So it is another kind of protest too. For the weakness of the human existence. For the fact that we can't deal with life/death depending on our own power.
But there are much more to say about the meaning of the song.
In my opinion, it has nothing to do with God, and in the same time it's all about God.
The most admirable thing about "Faith" lyrics is that, even if you believe in God or not, you can find there the questionings you have!
But I don't even think that it's only about faith.
I think it's about life and its futility. About us, wasting time in insignificant things until we reach the point that they mean nothing to us and we suddenly realize that nothing has a point anymore. So we try to find the answers or to just go away... Anywhere but where we've been before!
If one loves something he has also faith that the love will last forever
or at least until the day he dies. But can there be faith without love? I don't
think there can be. And that's the reason why people want to die if they
love strong and the love dies. I think faith and love are connected also
in the lyrics. There's contradiction only if there's love but not faith, or
if there's faith but not love.
-blue
No offense intended...
BUT doesn't anyone just listen to the music anymore? It's a kickass album! :rocker
Quote from: Carnage Visor on August 02, 2007, 22:02:45
No offense intended...
BUT doesn't anyone just listen to the music anymore? It's a kickass album! :rocker
yep. and that's exactly what inspires topics like this, even though it might not be self-evident at first.
because if you mean that lyrics alone aren't that interesting and that it's music that matters most, then i'm the first one to agree with you there. no pulitzer price winning lyrics can rescue shit musical output. but yet i would also ask that isn't it even twice as good if there's good music with profound aspects woven into its lyrics too? but at least and in my opinion that's one of the areas where i think the cure really excels. you can care about it if you choose to or you can choose not to.
at least i can't see how discussions like this would diminish the kickass-ness of that album.
:smth001
Now that I think of it, what I said earlier was quite crass and I wasn't really thinking. I do care about the lyrics...but I do not like controversy about religion (I'm not religious in the normal sense)
Pretty old but interesting thread here...
Anyway, I just would like to add two thoughts to what has already been said:
"your voice is dead
and old
and always empty
trust in me through closing years"
This seems to me to be about the first instance of Robert showing his worries about ageing and the effect it has on feelings and relationships... Pretty strong for someone who was so young at the time.
"justified with empty words"
This seems to be a direct criticism of religion, since one of the meanings of the word 'justify' is 'to free (a human) of the guilt and penalty attached to grievous sin. Used of God.' (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/justify (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/justify))
I love this:
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YrFvpbJ20kc/UynZCUQMioI/AAAAAAAACfY/I1L2j6WmcDM/s1600/Darth+Cure.jpg)
http://craigjparker.blogspot.de/2014/03/i-find-your-lack-of-faith-disturbing.html (http://craigjparker.blogspot.de/2014/03/i-find-your-lack-of-faith-disturbing.html)
:lol:
Quote from: Ulrich on March 21, 2014, 11:41:28
I love this:
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YrFvpbJ20kc/UynZCUQMioI/AAAAAAAACfY/I1L2j6WmcDM/s1600/Darth+Cure.jpg)
http://craigjparker.blogspot.de/2014/03/i-find-your-lack-of-faith-disturbing.html (http://craigjparker.blogspot.de/2014/03/i-find-your-lack-of-faith-disturbing.html)
:lol:
Haha, that's a funny one, yes. Posted originally on Andy Anderson's site and then on CoF. But if you follow the link on CoF that says 'Brevity comic strip', you reach the same image but only with George Michael mentioned instead of the Cure. :smth017
Quote from: PAOKCURE on July 18, 2007, 10:35:05
"Faith" has much more meanings and "explanations" than this one.
Absolutely because he selected faith for the track and not trust, sincerity or loyalty
and that's why I think Robert meant faith (in god) although he is not a "believer", is he?
What is the best live version of Faith ever?
Quote from: Brisk on December 24, 2014, 22:18:57
What is the best live version of Faith ever?
The Tienamen Square version.....
i know they didn't play it there, but it happened on the same day. They played it in Rome I think. in 89
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBLAR4_IC0A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBLAR4_IC0A)