Adventures in Close Reading #2: Dolphin’s Cry

Dedicated as we at Reading Too Much Into It are to bringing light to the dark corners of post-grunge rock lyrics, I was delighted to find, somewhere lurking at the back of my consciousness, the memory of this Live song. 

Now, of course no one outside of VH1 talking heads paid any attention to Live after 1994’s Throwing Copper, which had their one legitimate mainstream radio hit (“Lightning Crashes”) and several other modern-rock hits (“I Alone,” “Selling the Drama”).  And let’s face it; in hindsight it’s pretty embarrassing that anyone paid attention to such overwrought angsty silliness in the first place.  Though I do still get a touch a riled up remembering that my local Montana radio station bleeped out the word “placenta” in the first line of “Lightning Crashes.”

However, let’s not dwell on “Lightning Crashes” since it’s lyrical content is pretty cut-and-dried, by modern-rock standards at least.  ”Dolphin’s Cry” is late-period Live anyhow, and, watching the video, one has to admire Ed Kowalczyk’s commitment to such deeply, deeply stupid lyrics (seriously, you guys, how hilarious are those sub-Scott Stapp facial expressions?).  Beyond that, though, I was thrilled to find a genuine controversy surrounding the lyrics.  As per usual, it involves using confusing pseudo-religious metaphors to make a dumb sex joke sound all, ya know, poetical and shit. 

 the way you’re bathed in light

reminds me of that night

God laid me down into your rose garden of trust

 You don’t have to be the most critical thinker in the seminar to recognize the rose-as-vagina metaphor, or the religious-ecstasy-as-sexual-ecstasy metaphor, but it’s not often you get both in the same sentence.  Also, it’s nice to know that the God of Abraham and Jacob himself is helping bald dudes get them some.

 and I was swept away, with nothing left to say

 some helpless fool

yeah, I was lost in a swoon of peace

 Here’s where we’re going to come to the debate that rages among the fifteen Live fans on the internet.  The painfully literal among them seems to think that song is actually about two dolphins in love.  I wish I were making that up.  The more sophisticated look at the lyrics, think about the life of a semi-famous, semi-relevant touring musician, and say the song is about two lovers reunited after a long absence.  Hilarious, Kowalczyk himself weighed in onstage, revealing that the song is about… wait for it… doin’ it on a beach, and this section would seem to back him up.    But authorial intent be damned, I say, and soldier on.

 you’re all I need to find

so when the time is right

come to me sweetly, come to me

come to me

 Where would hack lyricists be without the “come” double entendre?  They always seem so proud of it, too, like they’re getting one over on the FCC or something.  No.  Just make sure it’s “sweetly,” though, ladies, like the way dolphins do it.  Take it to the chorus:

  love will lead us, alright

love will lead us, she will lead us

can you hear the dolphin’s cry

see the road rise up to meet us

It’s in the air we breathe tonight

love will lead us, she will lead us 

 Now, here’s an instance where looking closely is actually enlightening, as far as these things go.  Until this very day, I had always assumed the lyrics was “Can you hear the dolphins cry.”  Apostropheless, I pictured a whole bunch of sad dolphins, which, not paying much attention to the verses, I always took for some lame, pastoral, “Mother Nature so sad” metaphor.  I’m happy I’ve lived my life without this particular apostrophe, since it has apparently led those literal fellows I mentioned earlier to think Kowalczyk is actually describing two dolphins in the throes of lovemaking.  I don’t know quite what to say about that, except that if we take Kowalczyk’s “sex on the beach” explanation at face value, he’s talking about a dolphin making some noise while he and his ladyfriend are gettin’ busy.  Either way there’s a pervy dolphin involved, is what I’m saying. 

 oh yeah we might again, it’s like we never left

time in between was just a dream

did we leave this place?

 Thankfully, here’s the first bit of evidence for the simpler, more elegant “two lovers reunited” theory.  And… this is actually kind of sweet, in a freshmen-in-college-long-distance-relationship sort of way.  Let none say that I’m hard-hearted.

 this crazy fog surrounds me, you wrap your legs around me

all I can do is try and breathe

let me try to breath so that I

so we can go together 

 First off, ew.  Note the switch-up from “I” to “we.”  Don’t worry, girls, he’s worried about your needs, too.  I don’t think I can ew enough, here.

  life is like a shooting star, it don’t matter who you are

if you only run for cover, it’s just a waste of time

 Oh, you had to know he’d bust out the “gather ye rosebuds” bit sooner or later.  His sexin’ is of world-historical import, after all.

 we are lost till we are found

the phoenix rises up from the ground

and all these wars are over 

 I’ve a few possible interpretations for this part.  1)  If you buy the “reunited lovers” theory, it’s about the petty fear and jealousy going away.  2)  It’s the sort of nonsensical, bland, vaguely religious-sounding that is a modern-rock lyricist’s stock-and-trade.  I guess you tell which I buy.

 over, over

singin’ la da da da, da da da

come to me

 May the road rise up to meet you, dear reader!