Brian Eno - Julie With...

I am on an open sea
Just drifting as the hours go slowly by
Julie with her open blouse
Is gazing up into the empty sky.

Now it seems to be so strange here
Now its so blue
The still sea is darker than before...

No wind disturbs our coloured sail
The radio is silent, so are we
Julies head is on her arm
Her fingers brush the surface of the sea.

Now I wonder if well be seen here
Or if time has left us all alone
The still sea is darker than before...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Brian
• Eno
• Julie
• With
• before
• after
• science

[ZeeTwelve]

Does anyone else think that julie is dead and they are lost at sea? The lyrics indicate that to me.

[WKaliberr]

I never thought about it but the lyrics point to that

darkness, darkening, silence, empty

its all there

[cynthiamegginmonster]

@WKaliberr no they are physically alive but are dead to eachother. every relationship i've had has ended in this way. we look dead to others too.

[WKaliberr]

@cynthiamegginmonster its like describing 98% of all marriages

[kara65louky]

first heard this w/ my first bf...he told me, "shh," put the earphones on my head, and rubbed my back in a dark room through the whole b side. this song has always had a timeless quality...still...

beyond time, beyond the world....

[xReppinHoustonx]

@WKaliberr more like 97%

[pen64]

@ZeeTwelve

No.

[hammill88]

Per me il trittico Julie with, By this river e Spinder and I è qualcosa di unico...capolavori nel capolavoro

[newfuckingwave]

everyone is trying to analyze the lyrics. eno will be the first one to tell you his lyrics are essentially meaningless. his idea is to use the voice as an instrument, and he chooses words that sound interesting together. this is a man that bases his lyrics on nonsense syllables his hums to himself while listening to the instrumental track of a song. all 100% true. god do i love his process

[cheekymonkey1979]

@evilrobottolhurst Amen to that!

[gothicandfey]

It's very ethereal to be on the ocean or a great lake during a low pressure. That's what I get from the lyrics. Strange, empty "still sea" getting dark at the approach of a storm. There's nothing like it. . . . . . . . . . . .

[cmacleods]

@ZeeTwelve Despite the other responses, I read in an interview once that it's definitely a description of a death scene.

[evilrobottolhurst]

What a brilliant track. To try to over-analyse it and sellotape a single meaning and a single set of "pictures" to it is to devalue it. Brian Eno said his songs were often characterised by "abandonment" and this is the ultimate abandonment track.

Having said that, I bet we could easily come up with a cracking amateur video for it.

Or ten.

[Scifimaster92]

@zurapDOR What happened to them afterwards? Did Julie get a restraining order against Brian or something like that? (Just wondering. Don't get me wrong, I do like Brian and his music, but I've been told that he's a really nasty chauvinist, so I wondering if things ever got that bad between the two.)

[feminale]

@ZeeTwelve as indicated by his line "I wonder if we will be seen..."