anonymous May 24th, 2006 10:23PM  
The song is controversial as far as interpretation. In one live version I have a rainbow singer is heard (paraphrased) saying "This song is about a wizard, who takes people and makes slaves of them." This is a very basic interpretation, however and I suspect that there is much more to this.

anonymous September 29th, 2007 03:18PM  
A wizard is trying to reach a "star" -- representing some form of power, divinity, etc, it's vague. So he enslaves these people to build him a tower to reach it. But the people aren't just slaves, look at the words. ("We believed, we believed", etc., it's the overall tone of the speaker) They're the wizard's followers to some extent. They're not just there because they're forced to be, they really *believe* in his cause, at least a little. And after he fails to reach his "star" (could be because it's a myth, because he hasn't gone far enough, I dunno) a whole sense of hopelessness takes over the tone of the song. The people have lost their direction, their faith, they don't know what to do or believe... "so where do we go?" -- with their faith shattered, they can't even come to terms with their "freedom". The whole idea is continued in " A light in the Black". These 2 have the best songwriting on the album, some of the best stuff Rainbow's ever done. Full of symbolism.

anonymous May 28th, 2009 08:56PM  
Beyond the surface story, which has been analyzed pretty thoroughly, I've always seen the song as having (at least) one more metaphorical layer. To wit, the wizard represents Jesus Christ, his star represents the spiritual enlightenment toward which he was trying to guide his followers, and the tower of stone represents the Christian church. The "tower" required considerable sacrifice to build and certainly employed many "whips and chains" to reach it's current stature (think of the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition), but those who focus on the "tower" and the "blood on the sand" risk overlooking the "star" to which the "wizard" was trying to guide them. I'm not trying to imply that there's a hidden evangelical meaning in the song, just that the central theme of the tragedy inherent in glorifying the material at the expense of the spiritual seems to be working on multiple levels in the song. It's obviously not a perfect metaphor (for example, the tower is completed before the wizard dies). It's just in the nature of metaphors that to achieve dramatic continuity in the overt story, exact parallels to the alluded story sometimes have to be sacrificed.

anonymous July 16th, 2009 08:56PM  
I've listened to this song for a bit and have come to 2 conclusions - both of which could be wrong. 1) The wizard was deceived into thinking he could indeed 'fly', and his followers were also deceived into believing his vision of doing so but were disappointed in the end... but I also have wondered if 2) the wizard realized his followers were just simply 'sheep' and needed to be free of following even him, so he has them build this tower knowing full well it will mean his death, but he is willing to die so that they will know that no mere mortal should ever control their lives... I wonder if that is the idea behind the lyrics near the end of the song speaking of a 'rainbow rising' and 'he gave me back my will'... just a thought... so I think the wizard actually liberated them from slavishly following him, a wizard though ultimately a mere mortal...

anonymous September 21st, 2009 03:13PM  
The star is home. When he ask's where is your star? He is talking about home. The people are taken from their homes and enslaved by the Wizard, who is convinced he is a god and his home is in the heavens. The people end up believing in this cause, and when he fails, they don't understand why they were taken away from their homes for a false cause. The end is the people having a revolution that they are free, to go back to their stars.

anonymous February 20th, 2010 01:05PM  
It sounds like a reference to the Nazis and Hitler. "where do we go" may very well refer to the Nazi's desperation on loosing the war and their leader.

anonymous May 17th, 2010 08:32PM  
The first time I heard this song I immediately thought of a movie called "The Silver Chalice" where as part of the story, a magician (Jack Palance) has slaves build a tower (I think, I was a kid when I saw the film) the idea was for him to show the people that he was better/greater than Jesus Christ or God because he could fly. At the end of the film he jumps off the tower and plummets to the earth and dies.

I would love to know if Dio/Blackmore had this in mind when they wrote the song. RIP Ronnie James Dio