From the Easy Rider soundtrack, which is why I know the song, the lyrics came to my mind for some reason this morning and I was struck by how odd they are. The name of the song is "Wasn't Born to Follow," and this is how experts quoted by Wikipedia talk about the lyrics:
The lyrics of "Wasn't Born to Follow" celebrate the freedom that hippies enjoyed in the late 1960s. They express the need for escape and independence. Music critic Johnny Rogan describes the lyrics as an "evocation of pastoral freedom and the implicit desire to escape from the restrictions of conventional society." Music professor James E. Perone describes the singer as "a rugged individualist at one with nature."But that's not what the lyrics are about at all. They're about a guy who is trying to seduce, and then later abandons, a young woman who is part of the hippie culture.
And when it's time I'll go and wait
Beside the legendary fountain
'Til I see your form reflected
In its clear and jeweled waters
And if you think I'm ready
You may lead me to the chasm
Where the rivers of our visions
Flow into one another.
That is a non-subtle metaphor if I've ever heard one. Though this song is called 'wasn't born to follow,' the young man expresses not only his willingness to follow ("you may lead me") but even to be judged ("if you think I'm ready") until the act is completed. Only then will he leave her in spite of her pleas:
She may beg and she may plead
And she may argue with her logic
Mention all the things I'll lose
That really have no value
Though I doubt that she will ever
Come to understand my meaning
In the end she'll surely know
I was not born to follow.
The song is much less romantic than it sounds over the music; and rather than being an 'evocation of pastoral freedom,' or an 'escape from conventional society,' it's just about betraying a woman's love after a moment's pleasure.
You have made it clear that the author of the Wiki article didn't really read or listen closely to the lyrics. I suspect that many of us don't pay much attention to the lyrics of pop songs.
ReplyDeleteHaving the ability to look up the lyrics and read them has been rather enlightening to me in recent years. There were many songs I liked the sound of but didn't give a lot of thought to that had absolutely execrable lyrics.
ReplyDeleteThe author of that review doesn't see, or doesn't want to see, the dark underside of "freedom" and escape from social norms. It's not all flowers and unicorns; it leaves a trail of broken people in its wake. I hope that McGuinn, who now professes to be a Christian, understands this.
ReplyDeleteThe Wikipedia article goes on and on with different metaphors; it's really about 'the search for America,' or it's really about being unwilling to be drafted into the war ('wasn't born to follow the sheep into slaughter').
ReplyDeleteIronically the movie somehow gets it right without apparently understanding it. The bikers make love to the hippie chicks, are invited to stay at the commune (and presumably raise their children; there are lots of children there, and a religious community) but instead leave to pursue other things. This ends up being the fatal decision, one that ensures their death instead of life; they realize their error, but aren't able to bring themselves to repair it, and die in the final scene.
douglas, I have had that experience many times over the last decade.
ReplyDelete