Our Lady Peace song Interpretations

Naveed Interpretations

*Not all songs have explanations because Raine wants the listener to make their own interpretations of the lyrics - everyone can perceive them differently.*

The Birdman

Is about a man Raine saw as a kid

"I assumed he was some kind of politician that lost it and was living on the streets and just going nuts all night. It was strange; I just caught a few words as I passed by him, and he was one of the most intelligent people I have ever heard speak. Right then I had this enlightenment. I did not give him a chance and there are probably times where you miss opportunities because you form opinions so quickly."

"I was in Kansas city a while back and there was this man on the street. I was in my hotel room and I couldn’t sleep ‘cause this guy was just yelling through a megaphone and he was yelling about a bunch of propaganda and stuff but the next day when I went down from the hotel and he was outside still, I had a chance to pass by, read his booklet and stuff and I heard him talking to some other people and the song encompasses the thing were it’s kinda like a serial killer where on the surface he’s just a ruthless, kinda no conscience, no remorse killer but underneath the serial killer there’s obviously a really intelligent, very calculating kind of person and that’s is what I wanted to get in the lyrics of the song. There’s so many different ways and so many different perspectives to look at somebody.This thing, the birdman is just that in itself, that there’s always something deeper when you look into it."
-Raine, in a MusiquePlus interview, 1994

Explanation of the Birdman Video:
"The video’s supposed to show both sides; the serial killer, the kind of gentle side and the deeper side to him as well as the lunatic side, but hopefully people will get to see that he’s not just a lunatic, that there’s always something else, some kind of underlying theme to everyone’s personality." -Raine Maida in a MusiquePlus interview
"It’s about this man who’s got two sides to him - this tranquil side who loves birds and just comes out to feed them and he’s more serene, and then there’s the other side which becomes obsessed with being a bird and the physical-ness of being a bird. He makes these wings for himself and a beak and he just builds a nest and he just goes a little bit mad, like, he’s wearing nothing except these little underwear and stuff and then he actually gets that the reason why he wants to be a bird is not to actually fly, but to come to this conclusion of this spiritual freedom and more of the mind being free and able to travel wherever it wants to instead of actually physically flying." -Floria Sigismondi, director, in a MusiquePlus interview

Starseed

"It was based on this book by Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions, about a channelling experience he had. The whole chorus is about if you have had a channelling experience and during this experience you find something you believe and trying to convince everybody else is not always an easy task. I'm into a lot of meditating. My dad was Catholic and he tried to school me in that, but I never really agreed with him. I've always been interested in religion and the way it affects society. The Starseed thing is about going on a meditaion journey and coming back with something tangible. Something you actually believe in. Something that means something to you. It is hard to convince people of my father's generation of anything other than the religious values instilled in them."
- Raine Maida

Naveed

"It's named after a friend of mine. His name is Naveed. He is Iranian and one day he told me the background (of the name) was a person referred to as a bearer of good news. The album title Naveed kind of ties in all the lyrics. 'Naveed' talks about someone scared to die, but at the same time interested in it. Naveed was playing with a gun and was unaware that one chamber within the gun contained a bullet. We took the concept of Naveed and placed it in the dark optimism of our music. We have forced Naveed to travel the distance between mysticism and bitter reality.."
-Raine Maida

Clumsy Interpretations

Superman's Dead

About how fake the world is today, for children to grow up in. "ordinary's just not good enough today" - Raine Maida

"It's just about how hard it is for kids to grow up today. They're inundated with the media and images and cliques they try to have to fit into."
"It doesn't happen anymore. I have a nine-year-old brother; he's either inside playing Nintendo or staying up late on a school night watching Beavis & Butthead. And you juxtapose that against the old Superman, on the black and white series. He was a real hero, good values, strong-willed, a gentleman; but I think Beavis & Butthead win today."
-Raine Maida

There are two Superman's Dead video's because:
"They (the USA) liked our video but they wanted to put more band footage in and take out some of the concept and for us, we just really couldn’t see taking out any of the concept because we spent so much time working on it that it flowed the way it should and to sacrifice any of that footage would destroy the video..." -Raine "...so we just decided that starting over would make better sense" -Mike

Carnival
Raine has this theory - when we're kids, we won't step on the cracks or we'll break our mothers' backs. But this isn't just a game - when we get older, the cracks become things like the math exam you failed, getting pregnant, or your parents telling you that they're getting a divorce. These are the cracks we have to hop over - and now, your mother's back becomes your own, and sometimes, all these problems heaped on our backs make us feel like we're gonna break the song is "about all those days when you feel like you're surrounded by the cracks; they're all around you."
- Raine

Big Dumb Rocket

Was originally named Spider Gun, then Disgusted and then finally Big Dumb Rocket It's about a re-occuring dream that Raine has. He was at his friend's house and his friend showed him a Beretta (a handgun). So his friend leaves to do something and, being a huge Starsky & Hutch fan, Raine takes the clip out, sneaks up on his friend, and says "Bang!"

"He's laughing and crying, he's not sure what to do. I just pointed a gun at my best friend all right. But everything's OK because I took the clip out. But I guess these Berettas are famous for having 13 bullets and there's a bullet still in the chamber."
- Raine

4am

Named that because Raine wrote it at 4 a.m. and is about his father and "am" is his fathers initials.

Clumsy

"It's about perspective. At different times of the day you see things differently. It's just about standing back sometimes, trying to really see what's happening and get to the heart of whatever it may be. It's important to be analytical about things. I think sometimes people are a little tempermental or judgemental. Sometimes the energy you have stored up in your body comes out the wrong way and you have to be aware of the things you say to people and the way you view your problems. That's the whole "watching" thing. You can see someone and they might appear to be waving you good-bye and you can walk away and they'll end up drowning; or you can see it from a different perspective and see that they are drowning and they need your help and you need to jump in and save them."
- Raine Maida in Extreme Magazine, issue 16, Spring 1997

The Story of 100 Aisles

Originally named Anacin *
* Anacin is a painkiller similar to Tylenol or aspirin

Car Crash

About a friend of Raine's who died in a car crash and how unsafe it is to drive when you are "tired and jaded".

Unrelesed Interpretations (live)

Trapeze

There was this Russian circus, most famous for its husband-wife team of trapeze artists. Every performance for 8 years, the husband would climb up to his perch, look across the arena, and exchange a loving glance with his wife. Then one evening, he looks over at her, but she's not looking at him - she's looking way down in the corner at the cannon and the husband starts thinking

"about the last 2 days, the last 2 weeks, the last 2 months, 2 years. And then he realizes that 'Oh my God! My wife's fucking the human cannonball!'"
- Raine, in concert

The song is about those four seconds he has to decide whether he'll catch his wife or not.