The Carpet Crawlers lyrics

I heard that the lyrics mean conception. Think about it, it makes as much sence as some of the other stuff i've read.

Very interesting what have written the previous comments, and probably most of it is correct, but at the same time i have no doubt that rael's journey is litteraly a voyage through the cave of platto from his allegory. Throught the various stages of his journey in the cave, rael, as in the allegory, is seeking the truth bur he can not find it because he is the cave .

Not withstanding the complex religious references accurately noted by shakeepuddn, it can not be asserted unequivocally that gabriel's intent is an anti-religious one, but only that human beings are undeniably religious or more so spiritual as demonstrated by their penchance for religiousity.

Gabriel's protaganist, rael, is on a "spiritual" journey and represents the spirtual "everyman". Rael's observations, as reported by the lyrics, are "truths" and insights into the spiritual nature of man. As noted by shakeepuddn, religion is indeed a spiritual and social safe haven, but so much more than "myth". The "staircase that spirals out of sight" spirals upwards, not downward, to the "chamber" that lies above.

If it is true as reported by gabrielite that this song was lsd induced, then i would speculate that the religious/spiritual imagery of the spiral staircase, "revealed" to gabriel, suggests a journey to higher consciousness, or god consciousness, which is indeed the intended purpose of all true religions however inefficient applied or selfishly abused those religious may be by their adherents.

For me, the most striking words of this song is the refrain, "you've got to get in to get out. " although this phase can be interpreted in different ways, to me it clearly means that the spiritual journey is an inner one. In order for man to get "out" of his state of spiritual ignorance, he must make the deliberate, meditative journey into his psyche and soul. As lilliwhitelilith noted, man has both an inner and outer aspect to his life. Both are equally important their own right, and both are necessary to the growth and fruition of human self-knowledge (consciousness), and spirituality. As the moody blues sang, you've got to make the journey "out" and "in".

What is carpet crawlers about? Careful analysis and research reveals all.

Religion as myth, belief for atonement. Almost ever single phrase, image, line embraces this motif.

Remember, the lamb lies down on broadway is a reference to jesus. Extended:

“lamb’s wool under my naked feet”

Christ is the lamb, lamb’s wool his church and faith. Raised from birth (naked feet) as christian in a christian culture. The wool is christianity, which gives comfort, warmth, atonement.

“the fleas cling to the golden fleece, hoping they’ll find peace”

Fleas are the christians (or other believers) who cling to religion, hoping for atonement and peace. The golden fleece is from zeus (god). It has been interpreted by scholars as symbolic of god’s forgiveness. Also, religion as myth.

“a salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed”

The salamander was believed long ago to be magic, holy, unable to be destroyed by fire, actually being created by it. It is superstition revealed as such. The salamander isn’t created by fire; it’s destroyed. Religion as superstition and myth.

“each thought and gesture is trapped on celluloid”

How can a person’s every thought and action be captured on celluloid, like a autobiography of pictures? God. A clear reference to sin, the record of life, final judgment.

“there’s no hiding in my memory, no room to avoid. ”

Here the author (or protagonist rael) recognizes that being free of religion and forgiveness, unable to seek psychological shelter for annihilation, he must remain accountable to himself for all he does. Maybe. Perhaps just a recognition of our sins that require atonement.

“the crawlers cover the floor in the red ochre corridor. For my second sight of people, they've more lifeblood than before. ”

Not sure on this one, only that red ocher is a shade of earthy-reddish brown, not red and is no reference to a vaginal canal (i find that one funny). I would say a reference to church, possibly catholic, taking the sacrament (blood of christ for eternal life). Lifeblood has a strong religious reference:

"for the life of the flesh is in the blood... For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul"(lev17:11)

“they're moving in time to a heavy wooden door, where the needle's eye is winking, closing in on the poor. ”

This is a clear and indisputable reference to final judgment where it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god. The poor are able to pass through as the needle closes in on them, prohibiting others.

“we’ve got to get in to get out”

The refrain is a chant, like that of monks. Notice it is in quotes. It is not asserting what must be done, but rather what the crawlers (christians) believe must be done to escape the bonds of earthly life and sin. They must enter the faith, the church, the belief in jesus as atonement in order to free themselves of the shackles of reason, to shed the mortal coils of sin that bind them to earthly existence.

“there's only one direction in the faces that i see; it's upward to the ceiling, where the chamber's said to be. ”

Obvious: one goal, get to heaven.

“like the forest fight for sunlight, that takes root in every tree. They are pulled up by the magnet, believing they're free. The carpet crawlers heed their callers:”

Desire for god and spirituality is universal. They are pulled toward religion by psyche, culture, etc. Yet believe themselves acting under freedom of choice. In fact, they are bound by their beliefs and follow their priests and tenets of their faith diligently.

“mild mannered supermen are held in kryptonite,”

Nietzsche. We are all capable of being “supermen” but are help back as the meek masses trough obeisance to religion (kryptonite).

“and the wise and foolish virgins giggle with their bodies glowing bright. ”

Crystal clear here. The wise and foolish virgins are the ten virgins in jesus’ parable of the ten virgins in matthew. Five are wise and come to the wedding feast prepared, five are foolish, unprepared for the wedding feast. All religious scholars agree it’s a parable about being prepared for the last atonement, the reckoning on the day of final judgment.

“and through the door a harvest feast is lit by candlelight, it’s the bottom of a stairway that spirals out of sight. ”

Beyond this christian wedding is another celebrating the harvest feast, a tribute to pagan gods. It is the stairway leading down to hell. This is reinforced through the next stanza:

“the porcelain mannequin with shattered skin fears attack”

Here, porcelain statues, like those of chinese gods, idols basically, are under threat of christianity. Another valid interpretation is that they represent store mannequins that represent the ego and vanity of consumers. They are under attack by christian morality.

“the eager pack lift up their pitchers - they carry all they lack. The liquid has congealed, which has seeped out through the crack,
and the tickler takes his stickleback.

This is a tough one. Perhaps the eager pack are those who welcome the apocalypse, and believe faith and trust in the bible (carried for lack of worth to enter heaven) will grant them eternal life. In any case, it is yet another religious reference, taken from the apocalyptic vision of john in revelations where the seven angels pour their pitchers of doom:

“next, the second one poured his pitcher into the sea. It congealed like blood in a corpse, and every living soul in the sea died. ”

Finally, i’m not sure, but as a stickleback is a fish, perhaps the tickler is god or jesus who calls his flock (christianity as represented by the fish) at the last judgment. This one’s a stretch, admittedly, but in respect to the context of the whole song, not so far in left field to be discounted.

Thank you.

Peter says in a 1980 interview that he was totally juiced on lsd,laying on his back on a blanket on the floor in a room adjacent to the room the rest of the band was rehearsing in. He felt the floor wriggling beneath him,much like the worms that he spoke of wriggling all over the boys naked body in the grass during the pouring rain,in the opening to "suppers ready"which is what the birds thought of the worms covering the ground and the boy. He could hear the keyboards playing,and began scribbling the lyrics to "carpet crawl" it's original name,with the lyrics literally pouring from his mind onto the paper. When tony stopped playing,pete jumped to his feet,and presented tony a collage of the lyrics to his playing. They then worked out the tune to the product on lldob. Lldob was the first and last effort by genesis where petee acted alone with the lyrics,only getting contributions when needed. This made rutherford and banks unhappy. Their next effort without peter showed that they had a point. Peter should have come back and sang,the band would have excepted him back. They were afraid they would sink without him. But his ego wouldn't let him. If there is any band that should get together before it's too late,that's definitely genesis. There's just the matter of a drummer who now thinks that his weak lame music is as big as genesis material. And he thinks pete was a bit of a bully. And he thinks pete's to blame. He's wrong,and he should be at a point in his life now that he gets past it all,and get back to the original genesis,get the boys together,and do it once for dignity. That could be the thing that puts them on top of all the great bands of that era,and of all time. Could you imagine listening to a new genesis cd for the first time? On my "peter meter" i'd give it a solid gold boner!

This song is very complex but very good, that shows the mark of a good song and a good singer/band.

For me the story of “the lamb” makes very much sense. Because of its complexity i like to add an essay just for one song: the carpet crawl(ers). In that single song you can find a short version of the whole lamb-lies-down-on-broadway-story. First: “carpet crawl(ers)” (further: cc) is just a small piece of a bigger context and you can´t get through it by isolating it from the rest of the lyrics. There are a lot of relations to other parts of the album. In fact it marks a centre, the focus to the whole narration. Imagine “the lamb lies down on broadway”-story as a double funnel. Cc builds the connection between the two single-funnels. It sucks the stuff from one (out)side, the material world, through the “needle´s eye” to the other (in)side, your inner private world, where you have to deal with it and produce reflection and a reaction back to the world. These are principles of orientation and communication. To collect and select the matters of importance for your own unique sphere and to let them really in, deep in your mind gives you the opportunity to reflect yourself back to the world in a process of interaction. You are impressed and you will express yourself at the same time in an ongoing circle. The opposite of the double-funnel is the corridor. It is narrowed by (various) filters that brings you to handle the input in a prefabricated way. The carpet crawlers “just” heed their callers. They just crawling on the surface incapable to reflect or react, just following blind, led by moral, ideology, economy or whatever. They see a door: their goal to achieve in expectation of a gratification: acceptance, fame, richness, blessedness. But they are not able to see the tiny needle´s eye that is just open for ideas and interaction [and “closing on the poor” (in mind or spirit)] which leads you to an independent state of existence. “get in to get out” is an expression of universal meaning and can filled up with nearly everything. Between in and out you will find any content. “it´s over to you. ” the content between birth (in) and death (out) should be life. But it seems to be that the crawlers bring just their bodies in and out. Also cc is a compendium of the whole lyrics. All themes the whole album deals with are compressed here in the center as if you watch a whole cosmos contracted in just one point like a singularity. It is the question about reality. What is really real? It is the question about to tell genes from conditioning. To tell truth from fabrication. Gabriel begins with a simple impression:
“the wool is soft and warm. ” (the clearest sentence of the whole story! ) something he can sense with his body. Then: the salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. You can proof that with your eyes. But: in ancient times (say just 150 y. Ago some places) people thought, salamanders are creatures of the fire and can´t destroyed by heat (so they throw them into flames ´cos they thought they were the cause of all kinds of burnings). So you have to be alert. Who gives you the guarantee everything you see or you were told of is true? And by the way, why should a salamander scurries into flame at all? Next step is to mix it up:
“imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid” is a mixture of reality and fabrication or construction, the cultural reality we live in. You can divide it in:
“imaginary creatures are trapped on celluloid” and
(real) “creatures are trapped in birth”. Trapped on celluloid means: it is burned in your brain by conditioning. “each thought and gesture are caught on celluloid. There´s no hiding in my memory. No room to void” (avoid). You will not be able to wipe it off. It became a part of your reality. (if you “burned” as an englishman you can´t be a german or more strange for example: chinese; if you were 25 years old in 1600 you are not able to survive in 2008-society). As an adult, your conditioning became as real to you as your genetic code. “the fleas cling to the golden fleece, hoping they´ll find peace”:
1. “the fleas cling to a fleece” of course! That´s the thing you can watch, the real thing. The fleas follow their instincts to survive, a natural mechanism. To add . “hoping they´ll find peace” makes the whole thing absurd (or leads you to take “fleas” as a symbol and create a association). Fleas doesn´t “hope” anything at all, it´s an only human ability. But you will find more sentences in this song that are constructed the same way like: “pulled up by a magnet believing they´re free” or “a mannikin fears attack”. To compare the flea-sentence with the magnet-sentence shows you that humans follow mechanisms as well but here these mechanisms are not always natural, most of them are constructions of society the people not aware of (= believing they´re free). But as a human being there is a chance to break these mechanisms by awareness and then you got the ability to choose (leads to chamber of 32 doors) personal freedom. 2. Reminds to the struggle of sperms to enter the ovum. Why? Maybe just because “hoping they´ll find peace” describes a human aim of sexual motivation, that leads you here to a powerful imagination. [an example how our instincts are connected to our emotions and how strong they really are and it also shows you how easy it can be to “manipulate” people by using (or abusing) their instincts. ]
3. The “golden fleece” is something like an artefact of an old greek myth. (look for it in wiki) in ancient times people in east europe used the fleece of sheep to wash gold out of the rivers. So in greek culture the lamb have had another spiritual meaning as in jewish or christian cultures. So believe it: “this lamb has nothing whatsoever to do with rael, or any other lamb - it just lies down on broadway. ” (find it in lldob-song; liner notes). Means: lldob´s got nothing to do with religion in particular. Related to the greek myth, the lamb is a symbol of wealth, making money. Members of christian culture tend to overpower the biblical theme (due to their conditioning! ) according the numerous mystical symbols peter gabriel brings up here. The lower verse beginning with: “mild mannered supermen. ” dealing with a special aspect of our condition. The gender role and the relationship between genders. Superman is an idealised “person”, an imagination of being a man at all. It contains the double character of manhood: the strong, wild “version” fits to rule the world and the soft one (clark kent), the civilized (mild mannered), also fits to gain a woman. The double character is very hard to achieve and a cause for (self-)destruction (held in kryptonite = in the superman-saga a dangerous element of the planet krypton which nullifies the strength of its inhabitants). Remember: this was written in 1974, just short time after the sexual revolution of the 60s. The virgins are wise and foolish at once. They are wise to accept the rituals and rules of their times to achieve their reachable goals but if you see it in the light of awareness of their situation as a depressed part of society they act foolish at the same time to accept their role. “through a door a harvest feast is lit by candlelight;”. There is another door to achieve. By following the rules of the gender roles it is promised a fulfilled and rich future to come. “it’s the bottom of a staircase that spirals out of sight. ” . At first the division of gender roles was a necessity to survive in archaic culture. To get rid off strong determined behaviour and instincts gives flexibility to adapt to chancing environments quickly. But it also means the newborns need more protection, care and time for learning (now they have to be conditioned to compensate the lack of genetic determination. ) the necessity of teaching the young leads to a division of responsibilities between men and women and the hunter(men) -gatherer(women)-society. The cause of the division never comes to awareness to humanity for a long time, it was forgotten (spirals out of the genetic code and out of sight/ remembrance! ). So the relationship between genders get out of balance with the increase of power of men caused by their part of responsibilities. “the porcelain manikin with shattered skin” is a “fallen virgin”. With the “shattered skin” she lost most of the influence in her own faith in society. She altered from a “hollowed imagination” (“their bodies glowing bright” another idealistic vision) to a puppet, reduced to an “object” without prevention of society (fears attack). Today that seems ridiculous, but once it was a real matter of society and in 1974 there where still enough traces left in the minds of most of the people. Following this thoughts “the eager pack lift up their pitchers, they carry all they lack. ” (associate pitchers with baseball! ) reminds to the fact that the content of the “pitchers” is pure and clean and so there is a chance to alter society rules and rites (or culture) in a very short time compared to alter the genetic code. “the eager pack” lacks of the right conditioning and so every time the “liquid” congeales, (which has seeped out through the crack) in the same old fashioned way as long as everybody arranges himself with the results. “the tickler* takes his stickleback#” could express two things:
tickler is male: go on this way and you will be lost in masturbation. Similar meaning as: erogenous zones i question you- without you, what would a poor boy do? Without you, mankind handkinds thru’ the blues. Tickler is female: be aware of your power and choose (take) the “stickleback” who is willing to liberate gender relationships to influence and alter society and bring it to a balance between the sexes. Over the whole album one of gabriels aim is to connect the male and (cut off or subconscious) female aspects of his personality to get out as a whole and complete person. To be able to act from an intact inner center instead to be (de)formed by outside influences. Leonad cohen describes a similar dilemma in his song “suzanne”. But while suzanne is still an “outside” person (the reason of the melancholy in the song is the knowledge to miss something of yourself in her absence. ) and you have to met her to get the feeling of wholeness, gabriel finds his suzanne inside himself in the figure of “lilith”. The name suzanne (hebrew: shoshana) means lily. The first time lilith shows rael/ gabriel the meaning of wholeness [two golden globes (= closed spheres), (just) together producing a blinding white light (a symbol of their combined power)] he was shocked of its intensity and refused it on the first try. Later he overcomes his fear by jumping in the wild waters to rescue his own personality, his former very masculin periphery to the world named john. He rejoins with john but now something has changed. His connection to the world had altered marked by the yellow outline of their bodys (in expressionism yellow is the colour of female as blue is the colour of male - the lamia! ). The former cut connection to his inner soul is restored. You will find the theme in many later gabriel-songs again like “blood of eden” or “rythm of the heat” (you find that right after “it” as a demonstration of the new found power), darkness and many more. So long