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Interpretations:Birds Fly

From This Might Be A Wiki

I had a thought that this song might be about TMBG themselves, and how people often see their songs as happy, cheerful, and funny, when there's actually a dark quality to a lot of them. The only problem is that I don't know whether people had that attitude toward TMBG back when the song was written. It definitely has a "turning good things into bad things" vibe, though. The birds are flying...but they end up on the guy's windshield. The good-luck charm turns out to be some kind of identification tag left by the police. And so on.

I always thought that the "good luck charm hanging off of my arm" referred to handcuffs. The narrator therefore must be accused of some crime. Expression by way of words or poetry is definitely a central issue here. I believe the song is meant to be about someone who engages in irresponsible self-expression - protected (to an extent) by the first amendment, yet undeniably ill-natured (which would certainly describe the narrator's character if the "tiny light" of a "microscope" spans the entirety of the his goodness). Consider groups like NAMBLA, white supremicists, etc. These are people whose views may be odious, but they are likewise protected.

Yet there is the suggestion that others view the narrator as a well-natured person. Someone must be on the other end of that microscope. By chance, the microscope has happened upon the "only nice part" of the narrator, giving us the illusion that he's a noble character.

The question is, who's looking?

The public. They see him as a good guy, because he's RATHER FAMOUS! But they don't see his dark side.

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