What do you think Inaudible Melodies means?

Jack Johnson: Inaudible Melodies Meaning

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Album cover for Inaudible Melodies album cover

Inaudible Melodies Lyrics

Brushfire fairytales
Itsy bitsy diamond wells
Big fat hurricanes
Yellow bellied given names
Well shortcuts can slow you down
And in the end we're bound
To rebound off of we

Well dust off your thinking caps
Solar powered plastic...

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  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    litlmsbrowneyes
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     Jul 2nd 2007 !⃝

    Overall it talks about how people are trying to move through life too fast. Shortcuts don't really make you get there faster. people should slow down enough to take a picture and remember the moment. I think they need to slow down and realize the small things. That's when he talks about how old silent films say a lot but without sound. He's saying that when you look into something that you would have originally overseen, there's a lot there that you wouldn't notice at first.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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     May 5th 2012 !⃝

    This is essentially a song about film theory. Jack Johnson studied film theory at UC Santa Barbara while he was making his surf films including the September Sessions. A couple of quick references:

    - frames can't catch you when you're moving too fast - yes Bruce Lee was asked to slow down his movements during his films as he moved faster than the 24 frames per second cameras could accurately catch.

    - "chopping like an ax or maybe Eisenstein should just relax" - Sergei Eisenstein was an experimental Russian formalist filmmaker who is responsible for the editing styles of most of our modern films and music videos, Eisenstein realized that you could edit together otherwise unrelated images and create meaning within the edit, his films where edited as a very quick succession of shots, choppy style editing. Jack talks about "inaudible melody" to say that editing a film is like creating a melody to a song (rhythm, tempo, ect) in the editing room Jack was creating an inaudible melody with his films. His style is a bit more easygoing (longer takes slower tempos) so the Eisenstein style of editing, much like the hard rock or punk rock tempos were too fast and he wanted to get back to a more realistic and less formalistic approach.

    - "Plato's cave is full of freaks, demanding refunds for the thing's they've seen" this is a reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Greek philosopher Plato predicted modern media and film theory when he wrote about a cave where people were chained ground and forced to watch shadows cast on the walls by their captors (read: film and television)one day one of them escapes out of the cave and his eyes burn from what he sees in the outside world. Eventually he sees the world for what it is and returns to the cave to tell everyone about what he saw but is met with anger and rejected. The allegory explains how the masses really only see and understand the world in how it is presented to them by the ruling class (or mass media) and how only a few people get out of that mindset and see the world for what it is and through their own interpretation and perception, as opposed to someone else's.

  3. anonymous
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     Feb 26th 2015 !⃝

    "In the end we are bound to rebound off of we." We are too busy taking pictures of what we eat, believing shadows, and getting angry with each other. We should slow down and appreciate everyone, every second. Frame by frame ✌

  4. anonymous
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     Nov 12th 2014 !⃝

    Better watch Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch for a better perception of the song.

  5. anonymous
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     Jun 20th 2009 !⃝

    jack originally wrote the song about bruce lee, talking about how fast he would do his stunts that he would appear blurry in still frames when they filmed him.
    he changed "slow down bruce lee" to "slow down everyone" to give the song meaning

  6. anonymous
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     Feb 25th 2007 !⃝

    Yeah man jacks just sayin we just need to chill and enjoy life man

  7. joshk16
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     Jan 14th 2006 !⃝

    The original lyrics to the song went “Slow down Bruce your moving too fast…” This was a reference to Bruce Lee and the fact that some of his kung fu moves were too fast to be caught on camera. As a result, the directors of his films often asked him to slow down a bit.


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