Beautiful poetry and deep insights about life are all around us and can never be defined, categorized, or taught, only found or discovery by each of us. We all have a monopoly on defining beauty, but only for ourselves. This is everyone’s rights and duty.
I found beauty today in a ”simple” music lyric to a song that I have listened to hundreds of times, but without really understanding the meaning of. The song is “Caught In A Dream” by the rock group Alice Cooper and is written by one of the band’s guitarists, Michael Bruce, and can be find on the album “Love It to Death”, from 1971.
Today, as I listened to this song, I focused on the lyric, which I may never really done before, and discovered how these lines capture a deeper insight and feeling about my life. It probably describes a feeling that we all carry but that we usually do not put into words, something Michael Bruce now helped me to.
For me, the text is about our alienation and the dream world we all create and live in with the purpose to try to suppress the realization of our own mortality by seeking a meaning of life that does not exist. We try to understand and get to know each other’s worlds but we are all existentially alone, trapped in our own dream, fighting our own destiny.
“Caught In A Dream” by Michael Bruce
Well I’m runnin’ through the world with a gun in my back
tryin’ to catch a ride in a cadillac
Thought that I was livin’ but you can’t really tell
been tryin’ to get away from that success smell
You know I need a houseboat and I need a plane
I need a butler and a trip to Spain
I need everything the world owes me
I tell that to myself and I agree
I’m caught in a dream so what
you don’t know what I’m goin’ through
I’m right in between so I’ll
I’ll just play along with you
Well I’m runnin’ through the world with a gun in my back
tryin’ to catch a ride in that cadillac
Thought I was livin’ but you can’t never tell
what I thought was heaven turned out to be hell
Whoa whoa when you see me with a smile on my face
Whoa whoa then you’ll know I’m a mental case
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
I’m caught in a dream so what
I don’t know what I’m going through
I’m right in between so I’ll
I’ll just play along with you
Whoa whoa ooh ooh ooh
aah aah aah aah
oo oro oo oo oo oo