Foo Fighters: Walk Meaning
Song Released: 2011
Walk Lyrics
Your signal in the distance
To whom it may concern.
I think I lost my way
Getting good at starting over
Every time that I return.
I'm learning to walk again.
I believe I've waited long enough;
Where do I begin?
I'm...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:i believe, this song is all about starting all over again, having the chance to fight your fears, believing in yourself, and being willing to change every complicated or not situation you are into, in order to make things better & love yourself and your faults... it's about waiting for the right time to leave everything behind, and restart, as many times as needed, your life , as well as revising your plans...
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2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:I believe everyone at one point or another wakes up in a midst of what we have accepted as 'life'; realizing that we have strayed painfully and dangerously far away from what our inner voice.
Our society praises rational, logic and laws, indirectly dismissing and burying emotions, gut instincts and individual morals. Leading to a lack of indivdual thought, more importantly a generation of people who are internally hollow and ill with nothing to stand for on our own.
And when we finally wake up because there's just too much inner turbulence, when we just don't feel good about who we are anymore; digging out your heart's voice, following it and acting on will not only yield the constant critism of ones who are still fast asleep, but to relearn life is none less of a feat than learning to walk again. -
3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:i think the song is much more about RElearning to be yourself after being dismissed by someone.
i think everybody has already been in this helpless state after a relationship, where you don't know what to do because you think that you can't do anything without your ex-partner. -
I think this is a song about addiction and recovery. The beginning lines are very telling. A million miles away is how you feel when you are so deep in your addiction you don’t know how you are going to get back. The person sitting in the distance is your family or loved one who is separated from you by the drug or alcohol use. To whom it may concern is them talking to you as if to a stranger because they have no idea who you are anymore or how to reach you through your addiction. I think I’ve lost my way is the self acknowledgement that he is in deep. Getting good at starting over every time that I return means this isn’t the first go around with recovery and that he has relapsed several times because he is getting good at it. Meaning he’s not sure he can ever truly recover. Then the refrain is the cry for help. Where do I begin? Walking and talking are two basic functions of recovery - getting into treatment and learning the steps of sobriety and asking for help and talking about your problems of which drug addiction and alcohol use are symptoms. The verse about paper mountains sounds like a discussion group about biting down our lives with addiction and anyone that we love. Little conquerors are his fellow addicts. In rehabs, one tends to get very close to other addicts and alcoholics in a short time. The close bonds and sharing that occurs there is what give the addict a chance to walk and start over. The last refrain about never wanting to die isn’t about the physical death, it’s about the spiritual death one experiences in active addiction. How Dave screams it is how addicts feel when shouting at God for help. Save
Me from this nightmare! The fires we walk through are consuming us and we want to make it to the other side to be at one with God. -
Learning to walk again reminds me of my 11 year old grandson who just recently received a new treatment for a devastating disease. After losing the ability to walk he is now gaining strength and may very well walk again.
I think the song is about inner strength. It’s about being knocked down and finding the strength to get back up. When he mentions he’s waited enough it makes me think of someone who has been through hell and was able to only survive for a period of time. Finally life brings more than just survival and they are learning to once again live instead of merely survive. -
If you were a Punk you would understand that it's about not losing touch with punk rock even though you seem to have moved in a different direction. I didn't come to that conclusion until I read it a few times and the words, " the first decline, another state of mind" a clear reference to punk . That being the first film from " The Decline of Western Civilization" and the punk rock tour diary, "Another State of Mind"
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I think it's about reincarnation as a metaphor for something else -- maybe finally getting over a break-up.
The themes are very Buddhist.
"A million miles away
Your signal in the distance
To whom it may concern
I think I lost my way"
This sounds like he's talking about the paradoxical aloneness/nothingness, yet oneness with everything that's common in Buddhism and Taoist ideas.
"Getting good at starting over
Every time that I return"
This sounds like incarnation to me.
"I'm learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
I'm learning to talk again
Can't you see I've waited long enough?
Where do I begin?"
This could be referring to the sense of awaking you feel when you being embracing Buddhism (or any religion I'm sure). Since when you get re-incarnated all of your physical memories are flushed... but at some point you reconnect with your spiritual eternal self.
"Do you remember the days
We built these paper mountains
And sat and watched them burn?
I think I found my place
Can't you feel it growing stronger?
Little conquerors"
The paper mountains part sounds like he's talking about how this reality is all just an illusion, and the watching them burn part is like he's destroying that illusion.
Alternatively, the mountains could be material possessions. Mountains of money, property, etc. All ultimately chains that bind you to the constant re-incarnation cycle. Conquering the addiction to these things can free you from repeating this life.
"For the very first time
Don't you pay no mind?
Set me free again"
In Buddhism to be in a state of mindless awareness is nirvana -- freedom from pain (and also pleasure).
"You keep alive a moment at a time"
Buddhism, Taoism, and other Eastern ideas are centered on the notion that the past is only a memory and does not really exist, and the future is only your imagination of what's to come and also does not exist. So the only thing that truly exists is now, this moment, which is constant. The ever present now.
"To sacrifice but knowing to survive
The first decline another state of mind"
Sacrificing your desires for the material world is the path to freedom from re-incarnation (which is a sort of prison -- this whole business of repeating life). And the first step is realizing this.. and embracing "another state of mind"
"I'm on my knees, I'm praying for a sign"
It's possible here he's describing a change in religion. Perhaps he was Christian and while shifting toward Buddhism he's looking for the Christian God to show him a sign since he's drifting away.
"I never wanna die
I'm dancing on my grave
I'm running through the fire
Forever, whatever
I never wanna die
I never wanna leave
I'll never say goodbye"
I see this part in two ways:
1) It's like he's raging with abandon against the feeling of the material reality. The sense that the walls are closing in on you. The mortality of it all. The timeline, the ultimate end. He's raging against it. He doesn't want to die... certainly not in the Christian sense (if he's drifting away from that religious view).
The "Forever, whatever" is as if he's balking at the notion of living forever in heaven. He'd rather never die. And so with re-incarnation he can live again. Talk again. Walk again.
2) With Buddhism, the goal is to free yourself from this cycle of re-incarnation. So maybe he's saying he doesn't want to. He likes all of this, and never wants to die. He wants to continue repeating it. He'll "never say goodbye" -
my dad died of ALS, reminds me of how he lost his ability to walk and talk, but found in again in heaven. I know it was not the author's intent, but I can relate to the connection people with traumatic brain injury have to this song.
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As someone with a horrible brain injury, a bunch of us use this particular song as like an anthem. We've literally had to learn to walk again. We've literally had to learn to learn to talk again. We've not remembered the days that have passed. We've not even remembered what caused us to be this way. We knew we didn't want to die and some of us did experience out of bodies and see our own graves. We have literally burned things that remind us of how our lives used to be because we will never be that person again. As with any written word there are numerous interpretations in which we see on this page. But to traumatic brain injury survivors this song means things we literally went through to be here, our fight for a new reality and life. It is out theme song, anthem, however you'd like to put it because we lived every aspect of this song on a true and literal basis. This song has been and is OUR LIFE!!
TBI AWARENESS !!! -
I feel this song is about reinventing yourself, recovering after a significant loss. Somehow dedicated from Dave to Kurt Cobain, an old pal forever away, remembering the mountains of paper burnt (may be songs, sketches, projects in common) that set them up aslittle conquerors, and now he needs to start over again, asking how to begin, begging for a signal from the distance and chanting that he never wanna die...
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It symbolizes a lovely meaning where this person thinks on his past and the dream built for his love and himself only to see them getting shattered loosing everything. .and now he is down on knees unsure how to a start with a beginning.. tired being honest abt his love n waiting..but wants to live...cruel society. .
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It's about Being Saved. Spiritually. Learning to live your life a new way...the right way.
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I think its about buddha, as we are all connected, signal from million miles away would be a good reference to the frequencies which vibrate the matter which comprises your physical body, this is why there is no you inside you, your not here, your signal is coming from somewhere else. we've all lost our way believing that this world is real, life is infinite and never ending (reincarnation a leaf dies it falls off the tree to the ground and becomes soil, nourishes the tree, and grows back as another leaf very similar to the first leaf but not exactly the same, with each life you grow hence reaching a point where youve either expanded from a previous life or retracted which in both cases you feel lost, we always start over until we ascend or achieve nirvana in which case the cycle of birth rebirth can be broken.
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"We built these paper Mountains, and sat and watched them burn,"
Sounds like he built something up that looked great (mountain)but didn't have any substance (Hence they were made out of paper) so obviously it took one spark to light that mountain and all he could do was watch it burn. That's why he is learning to "walk again" except this time he'll make sure he gets it right (I think I found my way), especially after starting over a lot, and finnaly realizing what workds and what doesn't. I know this sounds nerdy, but I get most of this from playing video games. You create an online account and you suck the first time you play it. Eventually you get fed up with how many mistakes you make in the game and start over with a new account. The next account you have experience though so you make less mistakes. And it continues this way until you get it right. This is just how I see it though. -
It's about reincarnation.
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This song to me is about finding yourself. Giving yourself a chance to live for the very first time. "lost my way" can have so many meanings. For me it's forgetting who I am and what i love.
This song inspired me to remember to LIVE my life. "never wanna die".. don't want to just be dead in life..
It has many meanings to many people. Which is why it's so good. -
I think think song is about how you can feel alieneted after several years working and worrying about everything. Your life has deformed your body and your mind, so when you realize it, you have to learn again what you have forgotten. The lyrics talk about "walking and talking" which means you have to use your body, take your time and interest in peoples.
"Do you remember the day
We built these paper mountains
And sat and watched them burn
I think I found my place
Can't you feel it growing stronger
Little conquerors"
IMO, the narrator is remembering the days when he just finished to study and was feeling "like a conqueror" ( burning notes is something young people often do when they just got a degree ). He wants to feel that way again. -
I believe it is about someone who has experienced tragedy, something unforeseen and unpredictable. People who have seen life in its true form. When you begin this new path you look back at you're life for what it was and what it will never be. But you begin to realize that this loss won't break you. You refuse another state of mind, that giving up is not an option. You realize you will survive and that no matter what happens from here on you'll never want to die. I'll never leave the people who care for me and I'll never say goodbye. That's what this song means to me.
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