Re: kate and sick ideas

[jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu (Jeffrey C. Burka)]

Someone who didn't bother putting their name at the bottom of their 
message wrote:

>     There are many cases of musicians playing certain "characters" in
>     their songs that have little or no relation to their personalities
>     in real life.  For example, Peter Gabriel has a disturbing, haunting
>     song called "Family Snapshot," which tells a story in the first-person
>     tense of a political assassin, who waits with his gun for a famous
>     person to appear so that he can kill him.  He does this, he says, to
>     get some attention and to "be somebody."

Well, sort of.

The song is about a lonely little boy whose parents are approaching divorce.
The 'assasination' takes place in his mind, a game he plays, like "Cops 'n
Robbers" with his toy gun.  It's symbolic because Gabriel sees political
assasins as desperate for attention, which is precisely what the boy wants--
he wants his parents to pay attention to him instead of being so wrapped up
in their own problems.

"Come back Mum and Dad
You're growing apart
And you know that I'm growing up sad
I need some attention
--I shoot into the light"

It's a stunning song; one of Gabriel's best.

Jeff
-- 
|Jeffrey C. Burka                | "Show what you are / Be strong, be true  |
|                                |  Time for you to / Be who you are."      |
|jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu            |                         --Happy Rhodes   |