I don't know that there is much of another way to get on a multi-religious kick actually. Generally it starts from the premise that all religions point towards the same thing and works from there. People who think God and Allah are different Gods and who worship both are few and far between I would imagine.

Buddhism is an interesting case though as their isn't really a "god" in the typical sense. There are certainly ethical and practical similarities to other religions though.

gotigrz that is taking "for the love of all gods" way out of context isn't it?

Question No1.

What are you doing on this board then? No offence, just a note.

And want me to answer your question?

The answer is NO. You are wrong.

It is not the case to make a human being and god equal. He does not sing stuff like " I will create the earth, the man and etc etc bla bla bla" Like, open your eyes already. If Christ has the cross and Ed has a chair, howcome he expects a listener to equate him and god? It can be interpreted as a disbelief, as a way of arrogance, but... wtf, I never thought THOSE were the lines to explain, really.


soooo true, mate

This post has been edited by +Ed+: May 19 2009, 8:22 am

i'm sure it is.. lol. did any of you even click the links i provided? didn't think so. if you did... did anyone like either of them? y'all don't get me wrong. i don't hate LIVE, i don't hate anyone, but, imagine that you were a Christian... and you love the music of LIVE but you can't get over the ambigiousness of ed's lyrics. but, i guess he has to write lyrics like that to speak to all people and leave his lyrics open for interpretation. but, explain one song: i, alone. i've heard ed say that it was an invatation to meditation. what does that song mean, really?

I personally do not have to imagine that. I am a christian.

BTW Ed does not HAVE to write any lyrics at all. Especially for them to later appeal to ALL people. Get over this kind of stuff, please.

i'm trying. i don't want to over analyze lyrics. i'll have to admit that around the time that i decided to stop listening to LIVE for lyrical reasons.... it was around the same time that i was pretty much "high" every night. and, i guess when i got "high" my mind would start racing and it was the same time that SFBM came out. i'd sit out on my deck spark one up and listen to that cd(i guess that's the only to actually enjoy it... ) anyway... i guess i just started analyzing all LIVE's songs, and i came to the conclusion i'm at today about their music. it's a crappy story, i know. i wish, i'd either never listened to LIVE or never smoked pot(which i don't anymore). i had a child and i wasn't gonna sit around playing with my baby high as a kite.

trust me, i'd love to get over this kind of stuff. maybe y'all should be praying for me.

and, why am i here... i enjoy talking to people.

Different take on that lyric, actually I'd love to hear different interpretations of this lyric ...
I know he sings "I will sit" but I always took the words "To christ: a cross, and to me: a chair" as that Ed was saying some people may see Christianity exactly the way they preach it like gotigrz does, but to him there is no cross, it's someone leisurely sitting in a chair making money in the name of religion as in he's damning organised religion.

I didn't explain that very well, but I never took it as Ed comparing himself to God in that he was an equal. So along the lines of "Christ may have been nailed to a cross and suffered for our sins, but all I see now are the fat cats sitting in their chairs in places like the vatican getting rich from this sacrifice."

pokey, i've never thought about it that way, but i do see your prospective. but, when he says "i will sit and earn the ransom from up here".. to me he's saying Christ died nailed to a cross to get your love and money but i'm gonna sit and do the same. am i crazy for thinking that, or is that a legitimate way of seeing it?

and for i alone... in the lyrics... "i alone, love you, i alone, tempt you"... who is "i", and who is "you". because if indeed this song is about meditation... wouldn't "i" and "you" be the same person? and, if that's right... is he saying that "you" are the only one who truly loves "you", and "you" are the only one who truly tempts "you"? not God, not the Devil.... just "you". i know i'm reading too much into this, but am i reading into this wrong?

Buddha is (was) not a god. He was a teacher, i suppose, in some sense.

It is a song of love of a man towards a woman I suppose.

well, i know i heard ed in an interview say that "most people think it's a love song, but it's not really, it goes much deeper than that". and, i'm married, and i wouldn't ever tell my my wife that "i, alone love her". that, to me, sounds like i'm saying... "i am the only one who loves you", and i would never say that i "tempt" my wife. that's not nice... lol..

This post has been edited by gotigrz: May 19 2009, 9:54 am

That quote from Selling the Drama always seemed obvious to me. The song, like the album cover and many of the other songs on the album, is about rejecting holier-than-thou, hypocritical false religious leaders. That seems so obvious to me. Just look at the cover of TC. It's a preacher, with the bible clutched to his chest, leading a congregation off a cliff. The title of the song Selling the Drama says exactly what the song says: it is about preachers who "sell" the "drama" of heaven and hell, fire and brimstone, fear and salvation to the followers and earn their "ransom" (i.e. collect money in the collection plate) from the chair on the pulpiut. The song Selling the Drama is all about a preacher selling a story of fear and punishment to the followers and hypocritically getting rich off of it. Selling the Drama switches back and forth between lines in the first person from the preacher and from Ed, who note get raped like that again. The line "To Christ a cross, and to me a chair, I will sit and earn my ransom from up here" is the preacher's line in the first person. Christ was crucified on a cross. He earned the ranson for all mankind on the cross through his crucifiction and death. The preacher, is earning an earthly ranson (money) by sitting on his ass on a chair at the pulpit. The line underscores the hypocracy of the preacher. Christ actually suffered crucifiction and earned a spiritual ransom for all mankind and the preacher is exploiting that and earning a personal ransom for himself by sitting on his ass in a chair, telling everyone else what to belief. The song rejects that.

I think that Selling the Drama and Throwing Copper should NOT be offensive to anyone who really gets Christianity because I don't think it rejects spirituality or Jesus, but rather it rejects those human beings who put themselves up on the pulpit and tell everyone what to think and sell drama and do not spiritually enlighten people. Ironically, that is exactly what Jesus railed against within Judaism in the first century Roman empire. Only a Christian who puts the preacher and the church in front of Jesus and the teachings would be offended by these lyrics. The album is full of this stuff, which is why I think it is so darn beautiful. I really love the song Top for that. "This is not helping me at all, what you are doing here in the name of God and love, it's the distribution of fear..." AMAZING stuff. It rejects the preacher up there selling fear and division and judgment, which breeds seperation and hate and violence.

I believe I Alone is taken directly from Krishnamurti's teachings. Read his teachings on "Aloneness" and loving from a state of "Aloneness" and it will all be clear. Being "Alone", according to Krishnamurti, is not being without anyone else around. It is a state of being without conditioning. Without the bias of experience and thought and belief. It is pure, unconditioned being. Only then can true love exist, because there is no pushing or pulling. There is no labeling. There is no attachment or aversion.


I have read this thread with great interest. I'm frustrated because I think it is impossible for me to discuss all of my thoughts on what has been raised here by typing some post because it would take me all week. There is just so much to it. I'll just say this. I don't really think Ed has committed to the same kind of main stream Christianity that most Christians think of. Under his favorite books on his website, he identifies books about Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. Books by Krishnamurti and the Q'uran. There is a way to integrate Chistianity into a broader, more open and inclusive religious practice but it doesn't involve the belief that acceptance of Jesus as your personal savior and that Jesus was the one and only true God is necessary to avoid going to hell. It is a more open minded and informed view of Jesus and the scriptures. Ed mentioned that he is going to read Marcus Borg. I've read all of his books and he writings on Jesus and Christianity are, in my opinion, a perfect exposition of an intelligent, informed, open minded, spiritual understanding of Christianity.

fishoutofwater, i applaud you. not that i agree with everything you said, but that took a lot of time and thought to post all that.

and, out of the interpretation that i had of STD, and the ones i've read here today... i like yours the best.

all we know for sure is that ed said "his heart and soul as been saved, restored, rebooted and restarted by the Lord Jesus Christ". but, i don't think anyone can say exactly what ed's beliefs or intentions are. that's between ed and God.

do you think that maybe, just maybe.... that LIVE's music has kinda gone downhill ever since ed stopped question everything and started accepting "things"? i mean, i'll admit that the music has declined, but maybe it's the lack of dark and misterious(sp) lyrics that have been what's missing. i think that "questioning" lyrics are a lot more open for interpretation than "accepting" lyrics. don't you?

or maybe, ed and chad have just ran out of ideas of addictive hooks and riffs.

I think that questioning and searching, like pain and angst and personal trials, produces better music. I don't know why. Music is art and the passion and beauty can't be faked. Questioning and searching and pain and angst are real and flow though the artist.

I think that musically, Forever, Purifier, Take Me Up To Zion and Believe are big steps in the right direction. But I think that the lyrics are still not close to the high water mark of Live's previous work. I can't explain it, but since TDTH (and some of V), it is like the songs are not even written by the same person. The lyrcis seem to have moved from metaphor and symbolism that evoke passion and thought and beg for interpretation to simple stories that use simile instead of metaphor and grade school Sunday school level story telling. I think BoP was the low water mark for lyrical creativity. Paint a mustache on the Monal Lisa, Ride a Harley through the heart of danger and In the country the farms and orchards swell with oranges and peaches was barf territory. I'm sorry to say it. But compared to Mental Jewelry, I'm like WTF?!?! Since then the lyrics have been: "This is like that and this is like that... Love is great... the end".

Let's just see where this great ride goes next. Wherever it goes, I am steadfastly along for the ride.

Of course not. There are Buddhists who hold to some form of spiritual reality, so not "God" but some form of spiritual reality. That's all I was getting at.

I find this thread fascinating because I think that religions finding common ground is extremely important for the future of the world. Even if I am not "religious" I still hope for a time when religions are not at war with one another. Of course people within one religion need to all get along first... small steps right?

All that to say, I like where Ed is going with this but I still think the latest music is sub par.