y2jay November 19th, 2007 02:10PM  
‘Somewhere Only We Know’ is a song which has blessed the emotions and the mind-sets of all of us and our surroundings. It is a song which connects us, in an innermost base desire to let go of our pressures, and our bad misfortunes, and entering of a new dawn from the close of an earlier dew. It makes one visually manifest upon a winter night that this…that this is a song where people of all ages and current climate of mind can go through. I personally see myself when I was young…all the popularity I had, all the success I achieved…all the people I loved…now it’s all gone, and I need to go back, some how, anyhow, anywhere. The ‘where’ is known to me, but may not necessarily hold any importance to my situation, but it is something I relate to, and, in some deviant form of logic, we all do. Envisage and old man sitting by his camp-fire alone, looks wearily at the pictures of yesteryear, his mind fills with nostalgia, and he reminisces the days where he was at one with youth, his loved ones, his enemies and his own personal battles. He rejoices silently at his victories and laughs at his shortcomings…the medals from the war, the victorious parades on London’s Cable street, the women, the kids, the martinis and the kisses under the mistletoe…with youth and with pleasure…or even with sadness and the moment in motion…then, for an abrupt moment, he transfers himself back to essence and reality; juxtaposing himself with what is real and not inanimate. He is in his room, the fire is on his trousers and the cat just left through the flap…oh…and it’s snowing. Upon that, he thinks the battles which he lost so deeply are victories, and through their complexity, he find ease…hence, he sees how the simple things that have gone into the memories, have caused to him to wear down and get old…and due to his seemingly opaque meagerness, he sees no sign of reliance, hence he is calling out for help. That is the imaginative interpretation of it. To be honest, somewhere only we know is also a cry of nature, and the appreciation between things that we consider as inanimate and ourselves. He sees a fallen oak tree, and the branches ‘looking’ at him, this swift and subtle personification shows how much man has with nature, and how simple it is, and how we in our own ways have undergone a loud and pound metamorphosis from the simplicity into urban/technology mania. What HAPPENED TO SIMPLICITY? Like the ‘old days?’ This song in a cliched sense would proverbially relate to how ‘they don’t make ‘em like this anymore…’. So when we walk across an empty land (contrary to our industrial surroundings), I knew the path well like the back of my hand (showing how nature is all known to man, we are nature. The word hand…it was Eve’s hand wasn’t it)…I felt the earth beneath my feet…we see nature at its best.

Finally, to fully interpret it to our sorrows, I feel this song shows a display of escapism, where we forget our troubles and all our worries and just disperse into nothingness to a utopian haven for which there is place to talk about it, for you and me…only, thus identifying the link between ones own self and ‘you’, possibly a love interest, hence, depicting how even loves sorrows can be drained out and made amends in a naturalistic way. To reiterate the point about unity of nature, you, me..it makes nature we. If nature is we, then we are nature, and if we are lovers, then lovers it self is nature. So the symbolic overtone of love is ever-represented in the song. If it wasn’t, then the concept of united linkage between love and nature would be dropped, and the song would have various compound meanings. In short, this song is an anti-diaspora of songs which depict the differential attitudes we may experience in so many demographical situations, or in practical problems like love and hate. I would commend the songwriter for brilliant insight.

Fluence May 11th, 2008 02:20PM  
Somewhere... That's Manswer's Shaw, Battle, East Sussex.
Why? That's the place the band used to play everyday when they were young. That's the spot where King Harold II died during the Battle of Hastings in the 14th of October, 1066.
The "river" flows from the hill where the battle took place.
However, they're not talking about the battle but about the destruction people has made to that place. It's somewhere only they know because that place they used to know no longer exists but in their minds. The spirit on the video represents the fallen trees through the years. It's basically a song against those destroying nature around the world.