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Bright Eyes; Just what exactly does it mean?...
Topic Started: Apr 27 2005, 11:39 AM (797 Views)
Kestrel
Established Warren Member
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I'm writing my last English essay on Bright Eyes in first person so I get to pull in Watership Down too. I was wondering if ya'll had any input on it you would like to share. I'll post the essay here when I get it finished.

I've got it finished now, here it is!

Bright Eyes

1.Is it a kind of dream,
2.Floating out on the tide,
3.Following the river of death downstream?
4. Oh, is it a dream?

5. There’s a fog along the horizon,
6.A strange glow in the sky,
7.And nobody seems to know where you go,
8.And what does it mean?
9. Or, is it a dream?

10. Bright eyes,
11.Burning like fire.
12. Bright eyes,
13.How can you close and fail?
14. How can the light that burned so brightly
15.Suddenly burn so pale?
16. Bright eyes.

17. Is it a kind of shadow,
18.Reaching into the night,
19.Wandering over the hills unseen,
20.Or is it a dream?

21. There’s a high wind in the trees,
22.A cold sound in the air,
23.And nobody ever knows when you go,
24.And where do you start,
25.Oh, into the dark.

10. Bright eyes,
11.burning like fire.
12. Bright eyes,
13.how can you close and fail?
14. How can the light that burned so brightly
15.Suddenly burn so pale?
16. Bright eyes.

10. Bright eyes,
11.burning like fire.
12. Bright eyes,
13.how can you close and fail?
14. How can the light that burned so brightly
15.Suddenly burn so pale?
16. Bright eyes.

Sung by: Art Garfunkel
Written by: Mike Batt
Can find it on: Watership Down Soundtrack


Lydia Raver
Pam Mathis
ENGL 1023
April 29, 2005

Is it a Dream?

One of my favorite books is called Watership Down by Richard Adams. It is a wonderful story of a small group of rabbits and their search for a safe warren. Adams creates a riveting, exciting tale, but also interlaces it with allusions that strangely mirror our own world. His subjects aren’t childish; often they deal with death and destruction. One is seeing the world from a rabbit’s view, and a rabbit’s world is very fragile, but … so is ours. In an animated film that was made from Adam’s classic tale of a few rabbits’ heroic battle for life, there was a song called “Bright Eyes” that really summed up all the many different moods and overtones of the story, but is also very meaningful to our world too. I chose this song because it is from one of my favorite stories, and because I think that I can relate to it as much as the rabbits in Watership Down.

When I first heard “Bright Eyes,” it was sung by Art Garfunkel, and what first impressed me was the soft dreamlike quality of the music; the music itself was so beautiful that it, by itself, was enough to make me cry. Later on, when I found someone who had the lyrics to it, the impact it left on me was the beautiful and haunting portrayal of death. I could picture so clearly all the sad and happy ups and downs of the Watership Down rabbits: Fiver’s premonitions and his vision of blood running over the valley of their old home, the joy of when Hazel and his followers reach Watership Down, Big-wigs attempt to free the does from the Efrafan Warren, the final battle between General Woundwort and Hazel, and the end of the story when Lord Frith takes Hazel away with him to join his mystical owsla. The mood of this poem is sad, but it portrays death as not only being sad, but beautiful.

The lyrics give a two dimensional picture showing the beauty, mystery, and harshness of nature, but also showing one how death is the same way. The whole song is an allegory of metaphors. “Is it a kind of dream, /Floating out on the tide, /Following the river of death downstream? /Oh, is it a dream?”(ll. 1-4). This talks of when life is almost gone; it just slips and fades away until all that is left seems like a dream that one tries to hold on to, but knows in the end he’ll lose, and when one does really die, will this life he’s living now only seem like a distant dream? “There’s a fog along the horizon, / A strange glow in the sky, / And nobody seems to know where you go, / And what does it mean? / Oh, is it a dream?”(ll. 5-9). The person is crying so he see things in a fog, everything feels uncertain, he doesn’t understand how this other person can still be here, yet his spirit be leaving, and he is asking why is this happening? This time when he asks if it is a dream, he is saying that death feels unreal. “Bright eyes, / Burning like fire. / Bright eyes, / How can you close and fail? / How can the light that burned so brightly / suddenly burn so pale? / Bright eyes” (ll. 10-16). The eyes are the window to the soul and can talk like nothing else can; the question asked here is how can those eyes that were once so alive be losing that light of life “Is it a kind of shadow, /Reaching into the night, /Wandering over the hills unseen, / Or is it a dream?”(ll. 17-20). This is a description of death; no one knows when or where it will strike; it wanders through the dark and lurks in the shadows waiting, but in the end is still the same question; or does death really happen, or even exist; is life just nothing more than a dream that is lived for a while and then just fades away? “There’s a high wind in the trees,/ A cold sound in the air,/ And nobody ever knows when you go,/ And where do you start,/ Oh, into the dark” (ll. 21-25). Finally the other person’s soul has left and one is alone, and he knows it will happen to him someday too; dying is a process, when does one actually start to die, and when is that exact moment when he will leave into the dark? That darkness is really only dark because he doesn’t know what it’s like to die, so he is blind or in the dark as to how it will be when it is his turn to go.

The theme to this poem is fairly simple to understand. It is a picture of someone who has to go through the painful process of seeing a friend die, and all the questions and thoughts that this brings into the mind of the person who goes through this experience. It is sad because it is dealing with death, but also beautiful because it is a reminder of how life will keep on in spite of the death that is happening every day. In lines two and three it mentions the river of death, but this same river of death runs to the sea, evaporates into rain, and falls back on the earth making springs of life. In lines five and six one is looking at the uncertainty of night that the sunset brings, but there is always the sunrise with a new day to begin again. In lines twenty one and twenty two there is a cold and lonely wind, but one always has the reassurance that the spring winds will come, sweeping in with them hope and warmth. One is reminded through nature, that although life is dark and lonely at times, it won’t stay that way.

This poem is very realistic as to how people really do feel, before and after the death of a loved one in their life; I know by experience. When my grandpa died I had many questions, often just like the ones asked in “Bright Eyes.” It hurt—it hurt a lot to see him go, but at times I would just forget for a while that he had even gone, and think about going to his house and all the things I wanted to tell him; then it would hit me like a jolt—he was gone and I could never do that again. Those times were when I would want to say, “But isn’t it just a dream?” Sometimes, after he was gone, my whole world would seem to be deteriorating; it was then that I could feel that dark shadow that took him seem to hover over me too, like a dreadful curse I had inherited (l. 17). After my dark night, the sunrise did come, in the form of new friends who helped me to see that God still had good things in store for me, and had not forgotten me (l. 6). This song speaks to me by helping me to remember life’s frailty, God’s steadfastness, and the power of friends.
[size=1]True friendship is never serene.[/size]To <span style='font-family:Geneva'>have friends you must be a friend.
<span style='font-family:Geneva'>People will always surprise you.
</span></span>
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Arvens
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It's the story of the rabbits essentially. "Bright Eyes" represents Hazel with the leadership to get the rabbits onto Fiver's safe haven. "Closing and failing" natuarally means that the rabbits feel that the fire has gone out and their leader has died.

That's the jist of it from my view and hope that helps you out a bit. :)
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Classic Ranger Rick
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Inlé-rah
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The song "Bright Eyes", to me, is singing about death: you never know when it will happen("And nobody ever knows when you go, or where do you start, oh, into the dark"), or where you go when you die("And nobody seems to know where you go, and what does it mean?"). In the movie itself, I interpret death as being represented by the Black Rabbit("Is it a kind of shadow" etc). "How can you close and fail", is basically asking how something(or someone)who is so vibrant and alive die unexpectedly, how their "Bright eyes, burning like fire" can burn out. In other words, Fiver is wondering where Hazel has gone if he's dead, and how he could have died so suddenly. Even though he knows Hazel isn't dead, he still ponders the subject of death.

What I'm wondering is, how would you write about it in first person? Would it be from Fiver's point of view, or from the view of the person watching the film?

Seriously, I could talk about this song all day: it has to be the best song in an animated film, ever. I'm completely obsessed with it. :D

While we're on the subject, why does the soundtrack feature an extra 'stanza' which is not in the film? The film version starts at what is the second stanza on the soundtrack version: "There's a fog along the horizon..."etc.)

Also, in the movie, we see the Black Rabbit apparently guiding Fiver to where Hazel is. Is it really the Black Rabbit, or what Fiver is seeing in a vision? I don't want to overanalyze the scene, but it makes for fun discussions.

This reminds me, I need to make a soundtrack dedication page on my WD site. I'll stick a link in this post when I'm done with it. *Runs off to build the page*

Edit: Here's the page, it took me an hour and a half just to do a few simple things, bleh, perfectionism: "Watership Down": The Soundtrack
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Yay, I have a domain! http://www.inlerah.net Same site, new URL. :wub:
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Arvens
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I usually don't analyze that deeply Inle. :lol: You are right about one thing--it certainly is a song about death, no questions asked.

The song is written in the third tense though, not first because it describes Bright Eyes as a different person, not the one singing the song (as long as we assume "Bright Eyes" represents Hazel). I'm not sure it could be done from the first tense and have the same meaning because Hazel would have to be performing it.

I say the thing Fiver sees in the film is a vision, not the Black Rabbit for the Black Rabbit would not lead another to something that is still alive...his task is death, and as we know, Hazel is still alive and well.

Nice page Inle. :) Very to the point...I like that in webpages.
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Classic Ranger Rick
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Kestrel
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This was alot of fun, both writing this paper and reading ya'lls input. I'm looking forward to hearing if ya'll think my analyzation of Bright Eyes is accurate, if not then that's okay too. One thing that was a bit hard using bright eyes was that I still haven't seen the movie of Watership Down :(

I couldn't put quite as much of watership down in it as I had wanted because I had to do it more from my view, but it was still great (not counting the times I cried while I was doing it), I think it was one of the only papers I've done that I enjoyed doing.
[size=1]True friendship is never serene.[/size]To <span style='font-family:Geneva'>have friends you must be a friend.
<span style='font-family:Geneva'>People will always surprise you.
</span></span>
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Inlé-rah
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Hehe, I love analyzing things: that's probably the reason why I love psychology and similar subjects so much. I analyze at least part of every movie I see, and every favorite song of mine, especially "Bright Eyes"--the ideas it reflects about death matches mine to a tee.

Thanks, Arvens, glad you liked my soundtrack page. I'll have to keep adding things to my site, it's so much fun. I've wanted to put links to my DeviantART accounts, so visitors to the site can see my WD pics in their full size, and also get to know a little more about me(I have a number of journal entries in my Aniu1983 account). Trouble is, I don't know exactly where to put the links: should they be on my links page, with my two websites, or in the art section? Decisions, decisions, :lol: !

Wow, nice essay Kestrel! I bet you got a good grade on it. English was never my subject, but it seems you handle it well, much better than I ever did.

If you think "Bright Eyes" is great by itself, you have to see it during it's scene in the movie: like I've said before, I get chills just thinking about it!
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Arvens
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Quote:
 
Oh, is it a dream?


Um, that's or is it a dream? ;)

Otherwise your essay sounds quite good.
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Classic Ranger Rick
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Kestrel
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:rolleyes: Whoops! Thankyou for the correction Arven's guess I'd better go change that. ;)



Actually I couldn't find where I'd messed it up :unsure: I guess I'll just have to let it go, sorry :(
[size=1]True friendship is never serene.[/size]To <span style='font-family:Geneva'>have friends you must be a friend.
<span style='font-family:Geneva'>People will always surprise you.
</span></span>
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Arvens
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Stanza #9. ;)
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Classic Ranger Rick
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SkrÆ
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I looked the lyrics up once, and it had info about where the extra lines came from and so on. I think they were just added when the song was released after the movie.
Ha ha you're dead, and I'm so happy. In loving memory, of your demise. As your ship is going down, I'll go out and wake the town. Ha ha you're dead, ha ha you're dead, ha ha you're dead.
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Inlé-rah
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Actually, she has all the lyrics just fine. "Or is it a dream" isn't heard until the first stanza of the second verse(i.e., after the first chorus). Up until then it's "Oh, is it a dream?" That's what it says on a lyrics page I have saved on my computer, anyway. When I listen to the song, it sounds like that, too.
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Kestrel
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Arvens
May 2 2005, 09:36 AM
Stanza #9. ;)

hah, got it that time! :P

Hmmm maybe I shouldn't have changed that then (now that I've read Inle's post), Oh, well I guess one little word doesnt' make much of a difference :rolleyes:
[size=1]True friendship is never serene.[/size]To <span style='font-family:Geneva'>have friends you must be a friend.
<span style='font-family:Geneva'>People will always surprise you.
</span></span>
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Arvens
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I do lack any original sheet music, but I'm pretty certain it's "or is it a dream" each time just by listening to the song. Even reading it, "oh, is it a dream" doesn't really make any sense, whereas the other would since Fiver cannot accept that it is a reality that his brother was killed.
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Classic Ranger Rick
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Inlé-rah
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I did a search on the internet just now, and browsed through many official lyrics websites, and in all cases, it was "Oh, is it a dream", until the last verse. If I could, I'd get the original sheet music, but I'm not sure that it even exists. Doing a search on eBay and the whole internet turned up nothing. :( I'd love to have it. I've got my eyes on the original record, too.
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Hombeer
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listening......that's what this world needs
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The only official sheet music I can recall is a whole piano version I once came across, or are you talking about sheet music for the whole orchestra? Because that would be pretty hard to find.
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