The other day, as I was going through a list of UK number one songs, I came across this song, Bright Eyes. To my surprise, it was recorded by Art Garfunkel (from the duo Simon & Garfunkel) and was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1979. What surprised me more was the fact that Art Garfunkel had had a moderately successful solo recording career after his split from Paul Simon in 1970. In total, he reached number 1 in the UK on 2 occasions.
The song appealed to me immediately because it seemed like something I’d heard before but never cared to find out the singer nor the name of the song. I’m still unable to determine whether I’d heard this before, but I think it is highly likely.
The first thing you notice about Bright Eyes is that it is very ‘dreamy.’ There is minimal sound from the instruments and Garfunkel’s wonderful voice drives this song throughout. It has a very nice soft rhythm which makes it both memorable and relaxing. This is one of those songs you can turn on to simply relax or to feel a strong sense of tranquility and calmness. The dreamy style of this 70s song could also make you fall asleep.
As much as the song is great to listen to, I still cannot fully understand the meaning of the lyrics. It seems to me that there is a lot of symbolism involved but I can’t work out the meaning. For example, let’s take the following lines of the song:
There’s a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?
It certainly alludes to the presence of a dream but it also asks what it all means. So for me, if the song is asking what it all means, then how can we (listeners) possibly find out what it all means.
If there’s anyone out there who can decipher this song for me, I would gladly love to hear from you. In the meantime, I think it’s best to just enjoy Bright Eyes for what it is instead of analysing it deeply.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I have recently become very much a fan of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s music, although I had heard and liked many of their songs long before now. I always thought that this was a song about love, perhaps because the line “bright eyes, burning like fire” stuck in my mind, and I thought that the fading of that brightness had something to do with the fading of love. Now that I have read the lyrics, however, I feel that this is a song about death and what happens afterwards. In the first line a “river of death” is mentioned. The lines “is it a dream” and “nobody seems to know where you go” suggest an ethereal state of mind and point to the mystery that surrounds life after death:
Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
…
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?
Furthermore, the lines about the the light leaving someone’s eyes, make more sense in the context of someone dying:
Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.
This could be completely off-track, but that’s the feeling I am getting when I listen to this.
My dad told me it was about rabbits looking at cars and getting killed by them (the bright eyes being the cars headlights from the rabbits perspective)
You’re right. I do think it’s about life and death too. In particular, it focuses on how a bright, happy and lively being can quickly become anything but when they die.
That didn’t occur to them but now that you said it, that’s a valid interpretation. I guess it’s open to interpretation and that’s the best thing about songs like these.
I don’t know if anyone still follows this, but I read on tvtropes.com that the song (which is from the movie Watership Down) refers to a disease called Myxomatosis which causes blindness and death to rabbits who become infected with it.
I also think that the song talks about life and dead.
” a strange glow in the sky”
” nobody seems to know where you go and what does it mean”
“bright eyes how can you close and fail”
“how can the light that burned so brightly”
“suddenly burn so pale bright eyes”
It’s an incredible song but it’s also sad.
Greetings
I too agree that it’s about death, but I think it’s about the death of a loved one, and the agony of that loss.
Amadeu, I completely agree.
It addresses both the beauty of life and the despair of death very well.
Maledicta, interesting! That could be an explanation.
My mother told me when I was young that this son is about the testing they do on rabbits,eg the brand johnson & johnson test their shampoo on rabbits eyes to see if they sting your eyes, thats what I’ve known it to be about,if you listen to the lyrics it makes sense,This song makes me cry.I’ve always loved rabbits and think it’s sickening humans have stooped so low as to eating them. R.I P to the rabbits
It is about death – its mystery and how we don’t know what it is or where it leads. It was specifically written for Watership Down for the scenes of Hazel’s brushes with the Black Rabbit.
The song is from the point of view of Fiver, a rabbit with ESP who foresaw the destruction of their warren by men who used a poison to kill the rabbits underground. When Fiver had his vision he wasn’t sure what it meant or whether or not it was a dream, but he saw them trapped and dying underground.
“There’s a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?”
The “Bright Eyes” portion of the song refers to Fiver’s brother Hazel, leader of the rabbits that heeded Fiver’s vision and left to form a new warren at Watership Down. Hazel was badly wounded and Fiver, with his ESP, sensed that his life-force was diminished and set out to search for him. The lyrics represent Fiver calling out mentally Hazel.
“Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.”
By following his sixth sense, Fiver was able to find the wounded Hazel and save his life.