Live: Lightning Crashes Meaning
Song Released: 1995
Lightning Crashes Lyrics
her placenta falls to the floor
the angel opens her eyes
the confusion sets in
before the doctor can even close the door
lightning crashes, an old mother dies
her intentions fall to the floor
the...
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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I love this song so much. Having personally been through a still-birth I feel that this song relates a lot to that. "Lightning Crashes" for me means 2 things - 1. contractions (ladies who have had children will understand this!), and also it could mean the hurt/pain a mother goes through when she finds out her baby didn't survive.
I would love to find out what the Live's story behind the song is, to know for sure what it is about, but so far all my searches have been unsuccessful.
It is very interesting reading everyone's personal interperations to this particular song, and most of what I've read has made sense. I suppose it depends on each person's experience and emotions as to what the song means.
Although this song for me, personally, will always remind me of my baby boy who didn't make it into this world. xoxo -
This song is about spiritual awakening. If you doubt this, do some Googling on Ed K. -- and yes, I know what he *said* - yogis and mystics have engaged in this kind of reporting "sleight of hand" as long as there have been yogis and mystics. The "old mother" dying, and her placenta falling to the floor are the release of illusory consciousness. The new mother is the awakening into realization (the mother is language and discursive thought; she binds us, until we get it [realize words and thoughts are within our own consciousness, and we are independent of them] -- and then, she liberates us; the old mother and new mother are actually the same.) The angel is the all-powerful, yet fully innocent baby of each new moment of perception (the same "baby" we cradle in space, in I Alone); Lightning Crashes is the flash of pure consciousness in each moment of perception, *before* it splits up into a sense of subject and object. I didn't get this either for a long time; then I meditated for a decade, learned Sanskrit, and realized. I also realized that our good friend Ed is putting the "circle out to hide" in *every single song*. LIVE can take you all the way Home (where the Heart is Given Up to the One -- from They Stood Up for Love). Do I have any idea what I'm talking about? "Yonivargah Kalasariram - The Mother's group of sources comprises the group of obscuring energies; Jnanadhistanam Matrka - The Mother is the place of knowledge." Matrka - the yoga of the symbolism of Sanskrit is the "yoga of the hidden Mother" (yes- The Mother from Freaks.) Aum Hrdayam! (AUM is Where the Heart Is!)
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Ok, this song is nowhere near as complex as some of you are making it out to be.
"Lightning crashes, a new mother cries"
a woman gives birth simple as that
"the angel opens her eyes"
the baby has been born and is new to the world, seeing it for the first time.
"the confusion sets in"
The baby has now begun the same learning process we all go through: life, and is confused as this whole new world unfolds before her.
"lightning crashes, an old mother dies"
an old woman dies in at the same time as the baby is born, or soon after.
"her confusion that was hers belongs now to the baby down the hall"
This completes the circle of life, one life leaves this world, another enters, both equally cofused as to why; therefore the mysteries of life and death.
The chorus just exemplifies the ways of nature, and the last verse just means that the mother knows she has brought life to the world, and is proud. -
Ed Kowalczyk interview in spin From Spin Magazine: (Ed Kowalczyk) He smiles, exhales, and begins. "I wrote 'Lightning Crashes' on an acoustic guitar in my brother's bedroom shortly before I had moved out of my parents' house and gotten my first place of my own." Kowalczyk says that the video for "Lightning Crashes" lends itself to many misinterpretations of the song's intent. "While the clip is shot in a home environment, I envisioned it taking place in a hospital, where all these simultaneous deaths and births are going on, one family mourning the loss of a woman while a screaming baby emerges from a young mother in another room. Nobody's dying in the act of childbirth, as some viewers think. What you're seeing is actually a happy ending based on a kind of transference of life. The dedication to Barbara Lewis came after the song was written. But it was something that we hoped would honor the memory of a girl we grew up with and help her family cope with sorrow -- which it seems to have accomplished -- in a fashion in keeping with the theme of the song."
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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"Confusion" = "Life and all its experiences" The dead old woman no longer has confusion, but the newborn baby will. An elegant expression of the cycle of life.
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Oh how I love wikipedia!
Song meaning:
The band dedicated the song to Barbara Lewis, a friend of the band who had been killed by a drunk driver who was fleeing from the police after a robbery. Barbara had many of her organs donated, and the song lyrics reflect how her death enabled others to continue living. After the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, Ed Kowalczyk would frequently dedicate the song to the victims at live shows.
Soon after the Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995, a local radio station mixed in news clippings, audio clips of U.S. President Bill Clinton and Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating responding to the attack, along with other sounds (such as ambulance and fire engine sirens) of that day. -
After reading the other posts here I think the meaning is pretty obvious.
First verse: A mother gives birth to a child and cries 'cause she's so happy. "The angel opens her eyes" means the baby is opening it's eyes for the first time and therefor the baby gets confused right away, even before the doctor leaves the room.
Second verse: An old women dies in the same hospital as the child was born in. And when she dies she obviously doesn't have any worries anymore. But the baby down the hall is just born and is going to have loads of things to worry about later in life.
Thunder crashes obvously means that something sudden happens that strikes us like a thunder, like death.
The angel is there to give live and take life.
This is what I reckon after going through the lyrics but there's one thing in the video that bothers me. In the end of the video the baby lies alone in the bed and the angel is standing over it. Why is the baby alone in the bed? I don't get it.
That's why I always thought at first that the mother had died but I want to believe that she didn't. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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And the answer is… This song is about a woman (the old mother) who dies and donates her organs and a baby that is born blind (without irises). The baby receives the woman’s irises and is able to see.
Here is my reasoning:
Lightning crashes a new mother cries
Her placenta falls to the floor
The angel opens her eyes
The confusion sets in
Before the doctor can even close the door
As soon as “the angel opens her eyes - The confusion sets in” = baby born blind.
Lightning crashes an old mother dies
Her intentions fall to the floor
The angel closes her eyes
The confusion that was hers
Belongs now to the baby down the hall
The woman dies – This was the key in the video it shows the woman dies and her ghost walks out of the room. Later it shows that ghost in a room alone standing over a new born baby. They show a two second shot of the ghost’s face; the eyes are all white they are missing their irises.
1-Oh now feel it, comin' back again
Like a rollin', thunder chasing the wind
Forces pullin' from
The center of the earth again
I can feel it.
This verse is about the transplant operation.
Lightning crashes a new mother cries
This moment she's been waiting for
The angel opens her eyes
Pale blue colored iris
Presents the circle
And puts the glory out to hide, hide
And there it is – operation successful – the baby can see. -
I think that the repetition of 'lightning crashes' in each verse suggests that everything is linked. This helps to gain a better understanding of the meaning and theme of the song. That life and death are perhaps related. "the confusion that was hers now belongs to a baby down the hall". This suggests that perhaps life is passed on to another being.
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These lyrics are constantly misunderstood. The band dedicated this to Barbara Lewis, one of their high school friends who was killed by a drunk driver around the time this song was written.
"The song's lyrics are mostly an analogy. Barb donated several organs, including her heart. She died in a car collision with a fleeing armed robber. Yes, Ed is speaking to the circle of life, but specifically to how Barb's life gave new life to many. The angel, the baby down the hall, the pale blue eyes (of Barb), the pain ("confusion")... The lyrics are wholly Ed's interpretation of his experience and perception of Barb's impact. "lightning crashes" lives on.
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