Starblind

How good is Starblind on a scale of 1-10?

  • Total voters
    11
I'm loving all the readings here. I'll throw in my 2 cents regarding the chorus and some broader themes.

I was puzzling over the chorus for a while, trying to read it on a very symbolic level. Funnily enough it wasn't until I actually starting looking at it literally that it started to make some sense. I think when he says "Starblind, with sun" he's referring to the fact that when the sun is in the sky during the day you are literally 'blind' to all the other stars. The sun becomes your 'truth', religious or otherwise.  He then goes on to say 'the stars are one', which I read as an admission that even though it is the 'sun' that is your truth (religion), there are still a billion others out there, just the same. I think this ties in with a broader theme of universal spirituality, the idea that when stripped of its 'earthly' trappings each faith is trying to reconcile mortality with the eternal. The choice becomes one of a faith that oppresses you, or one that doesn't: 'Walk away from freedoms offered / by the jailors in their cage.' 'You are free to choose a life to live / or one that's left to lose.' 'Walk away from comfort offered / by your citizens of death.'

I think this idea also ties into the the line "Let the elders to their parley / Meant to satisfy our lust / Leaving Damacles still hanging / over all their promised trust." Damacles in this sense is hell, the ever-present threat that hangs behind all the promises of love and trust and eternity for the faithful. The elders are religious establishment who in 'parley' wrote the holy books that provide rules and liturgy that provide the faithful with  ways of satisfying their 'lust'.

My readings of the other two lines in the chorus are a little less certain ('We are the light that brings the end of night' and 'We're one with the Goddess of the Sun tonight". They hinge entirely on who is being referred to with the 'we'. Is it the narrator referring to humanity as a whole? Is it from the POV of one of the stars as was suggested above? Or perhaps he means the souls who, like him, have 'shed our skins and swim in the darkened void beyond.'
 
SpaceCoyote said:
I'm loving all the readings here. I'll throw in my 2 cents regarding the chorus and some broader themes.

I was puzzling over the chorus for a while, trying to read it on a very symbolic level. Funnily enough it wasn't until I actually starting looking at it literally that it started to make some sense. I think when he says "Starblind, with sun" he's referring to the fact that when the sun is in the sky during the day you are literally 'blind' to all the other stars. The sun becomes your 'truth', religious or otherwise.  He then goes on to say 'the stars are one', which I read as an admission that even though it is the 'sun' that is your truth (religion), there are still a billion others out there, just the same.
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This makes sense to me. Still, LC managed to find an interpretation which seemed to connect all parts of the songs in a way that also made sense.

After a few more listens, I really start to appreciate the guitar work in this song - this might be the first song where they really make the full effect of having three guitars. It is so rich in small details, short solo fills and so on. This song will surely need a lot of work to play along with.
 
SpaceCoyote said:
I think this ties in with a broader theme of universal spirituality, the idea that when stripped of its 'earthly' trappings each faith is trying to reconcile mortality with the eternal. The choice becomes one of a faith that oppresses you, or one that doesn't: 'Walk away from freedoms offered / by the jailors in their cage.' 'You are free to choose a life to live / or one that's left to lose.' 'Walk away from comfort offered / by your citizens of death.'
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I would even go so far as to say that this chorus suggests walking away from established institutionalized religions that focus all too much on the outcomes after death, on heaven and hell, for instance, because over-contemplating death and the rewards or punishments after life make you 'a citizen of death' and thus your 'life is left to lose' simply because you cease to live for life, but instead live for death.
 
It's an amazing song, but that Infinite Dreams is pretty much out there. Very noticable, I think it's pretty much the same progression.
 
Oh mate...it took 5+ listens for me before this song really started to grow in stature. Now I consider it heads and tails over the rest of the album.
 
Ok, I think it's growing on me. It'll be no better than 4th best (WTWWB, CH, TT beat it) at the moment but it was circling the bottom 3 before.
 
There are more powerful, faster, more blistering moments on the album than this tune contains, but after the record stops spinning, this one has the most lasting impact.  This is the one that makes you think.  This is the Hallowed Be Thy Name of this album, or even of this era of Maiden.
 
I hope I grow to like this one as much as you guys do... but currently the riffage, chord progressions and bland production during the verse and chorus have damn near spoiled this one for me so far. I love the lyrics, don't get me wrong, and they are probably my favorite on the album and extremely poignant, but a great deal of the music in the song simply does not match the astounding lyrics for me.
 
While there are some moments in this song that have definately grown on me, when taken on a whole, I still have this one in the bottom three of the album. 
 
First of all, amazing interpretation of the lyrics, LooseCannon. Truly inspired and very much spot on, in my opinion.

I do have one point to dispute, though:

LooseCannon said:
And as Bruce reminds us, you have two choices: a life to live, or a life to lose. Living your life means not worrying about the promise of a religion, but instead, choosing your own morals, rather than those from a Bronze Age text. The life that you have left to lose is the life spent in the devotion of a being that doesn't exist; Sundays in church, moneys on tithes, and in extreme cases, your life on a bus in Tel Aviv or Baghdad with a bomb strapped to your chest. You have everything to gain by living a life free of religion.
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I think the parallel Bruce traces with "life to live / life to lose" is more universal than a straightforward criticism of religion and its trappings. I'd say choosing the "life to live" is living your life without worrying too much about what happens after you die, regardless of what you believe, while choosing the "life to lose" is living your life constantly worrying about what is to come, causing you to pass through life instead of really living it to the full. In other words, the lyrics point out that we can choose to either live our lives as best as we can without concerning ourselves with whatever may or may not come after it's over, or to waste our short time here on this Earth endlessly worrying over such matters -- "You may think you have the time, but I tell you your time is short", indeed.

Incidentally, this ties up with the general message of the title track -- "I've lived my life to the full, I have no regrets; if I could survive to live one more time, I wouldn't be changing a thing at all". In fact, Starblind can be viewed as a very appropriate "gloomy" counterpart to The Final Frontier's "cheery" feel, what with the overall theme of space travel that both songs have. The message, then, seems to be that we should strive to be more like the character depicted in TFF: a person that can stoically accept their own demise because their life has been so fulfilling that they can look back and not regret a single moment, knowing that each and every moment was lived to its full, without wasting time worrying about things that can't be controlled in the first place.

Cheers,
Cobra.
 
Incidentally, living your life to the full isn't an uncommon theme in Maiden's songs.  Different World, Wildest Dreams, Judgement of Heaven, Wasted Years, even The Clairvoyant in a way.

"I think I'll take a hold
Of whatever comes my way
Then we'll see what happens
Take it day by day "

"If you could live your life again, would you change a thing or leave it all the same?
If you had the chance again, would you change a thing at all?"

"There's a time to live and a time to die when it's time to meet the maker
There's a time to live but isn't it strange that as soon as you're born you're dying"

"So understand
Don't waste your time always searching for those wasted years
Face up... make your stand
And realise you're living in the golden years "

That being said, after quite extensive listening of the track I would anyway go for Loosey's interpretation.
 
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