Elephant
 

In the song is he talking about two girls,

"You can both keep me pinned" and so forth

Yes. It's a sequel to "The Blower's Daughter" and reveals how wrong he was about the last line of the earlier song "...'til I find somebody new".

i prefere not to consider it as a sequel to the blower's daughter(even if it is)! the phrase ''til i find somebody new'' is an optimistic tone in a depressive song! he can't take his eyes of her but who knows what time will bring? it's a phrase which connects our present to our future and it's a brilliant way for ending a song like that; leaving questions without answers! so, what's the point in telling us if he was wrong or not since, when we ourselves sing it, we've not learnt it yet...

I don't think that the "'til I find somebody new" is necessarily all that optimistic. I've always thought the implication was "'til I find somebody new...and then I'll go through all of this with them instead". But maybe that's just me and my sunny outlook on life! :D

Always thought of Elephant as a prequel to The Blowers Daughter.... first time I heard it was on a Live at The Paradiso CD.... where he called it Blowers pt2, and played if before, and they just seemed to melt into each other nicely.... think the originingal wording was just "and you can keep me pinned", so seemed to fit my theory........

But if it was the prequel, surely he wouldn't have called it "part two"? And it was written after The Blower's Daughter, so choronologically that wouldn't make sense.

Yeah Niko, good point... however, if you were to consider the last line of part 2 - "someone else on top" and the first line of part 1 - "and so it is" it is almost as if he is continuing the story of the song on, and giving the consequences of the first... but only he will ever know i suppose..

does that make sense of my reasoning?

"And so it is" is just the first part of the sentence. The whole thing is: "And so it is, just like you said it would be". The last line of Elephant is "You know that's a lie", not "someone else on top". If you follow through the narrative of each song, I don't think it makes anywhere near as much sense for Elephant to come first.

it can't be the prequel:

BD: We'll both forget the breeze
Elephant: Do you still forget the breeze?

definately sequel.

I agree - definitely a sequel.

After all 'Elephant' starts with "This has got to stop"

instead of foghting about whether it is the prequel or th sequel could you please explain to me what the elephant stands for in this song???

I'm sorry you misconstrued our discussion as a fight, alifatsaki. If only we'd known you weren't interested in what we were saying, I'm sure we'd have been discussing what you wanted us to instead :smiley20:

doesn't the name Elephant just come from "you can't paint an elephant quite as good as she" ? and the elephant painting from older artwork. I remember reading somewhere on the forum about someone talking with damien about elephants. I think Spamlet. and he said something about the fascination of why something so huge is scared of a tiny little mouse.

Sorry Niko, think you missed what I was trying to point out....

when I mention part 2, I dont mean the 9 version.. I am talking about the version I first heard and based my interperetation on... which was the Live at the Paradiso version.... suppose it all depends on the version of the song you hear first, and the circumstances under which you hear it.....

That was the first version of it that I heard, too. I just think of "Elephant" as being the finished version, and "The Blower's Daugher, part two" as being an earlier draft. So from my position, that means that "Elephant" is the song in the form that best expresses what Damien wants to say, and therefore that's the version you've got to base the majority of your opinions on.

I totally agree that it is a sequel. I guess he realized rebounds are nothing like the real thing.

That's exactly what I think about it. Elephant has to be the sequel, he finds out that things are only getting worse, "this has got to stop" may be referred to the fact that he cant take his eyes off her, and all the consequences this brings

In fact, the prequel to The Blower's Daughter is.... I REMEMBER!!!!!

He said that at the Saratoga concert this year... well, not exactly but he said that I Remember was about the blower's daughter and I Remember is clearly about the first time they met each other ;)

Hmm...Well Sleep Don't Weep was not a Cold Water pt. 2 but it was written before Cold Water and had a similar sound.