1959
Posted: 20 Nov 2008, 17:16
I’ve been listening to 1959 on repeat today after being verily moved by it and feeling like I’ve “really gotten� what it’s all about. To me, the whole song is about disappointment and regret. The narrator reflects on his childhood and how everything started out pure and clean, including himself, but that he soon passively crossed a line that destroyed that purity and can now see, unlike before, the way things were going. When he says “and the wind blows wild again, for a little child can never kill this clean�, he’s reflecting on how reckless people are in their youth, including himself, thanks to a lack of foresight.
Another element of the song seems to be a rather callous need for solace. Throughout the song, he asks a girl, Isabelle, if she feels like him or 1959, i.e. if she’s “sinful� or “pure�, almost as if he is hoping she is the former so he can have someone to identify with. Hence he asks her at the end of the song to “come with me�.
Living as an angel in the
Place that I was born
Living on air
Living in heaven
Giving the lie down, the line
To the
There's my heaven
And I know
Which way the wind blows
In nineteen fifty-nine
Which way the wind blows
In nineteen fifty-nine
And the wind blows still
And the wind blows wild again
For a little child can never kill this clean
This way
And it feels like me today
Tell me
Do you feel the same?
Isabelle?
Or do you feel like nineteen fifty-nine?
...Do you feel like nineteen fifty-nine?
And the wind blows wild again
And the wind blows wild
In nineteen fifty-nine
In fifty-nine
Isabelle
Do you, do you fell the same?
Come with me
Like a little child
Like another gun
Like homeless, restless, known to none, like
Way beyond the line
Like it never was
In nineteen fifty-nine
Another element of the song seems to be a rather callous need for solace. Throughout the song, he asks a girl, Isabelle, if she feels like him or 1959, i.e. if she’s “sinful� or “pure�, almost as if he is hoping she is the former so he can have someone to identify with. Hence he asks her at the end of the song to “come with me�.
Living as an angel in the
Place that I was born
Living on air
Living in heaven
Giving the lie down, the line
To the
There's my heaven
And I know
Which way the wind blows
In nineteen fifty-nine
Which way the wind blows
In nineteen fifty-nine
And the wind blows still
And the wind blows wild again
For a little child can never kill this clean
This way
And it feels like me today
Tell me
Do you feel the same?
Isabelle?
Or do you feel like nineteen fifty-nine?
...Do you feel like nineteen fifty-nine?
And the wind blows wild again
And the wind blows wild
In nineteen fifty-nine
In fifty-nine
Isabelle
Do you, do you fell the same?
Come with me
Like a little child
Like another gun
Like homeless, restless, known to none, like
Way beyond the line
Like it never was
In nineteen fifty-nine
wrote it on the bog 
