Chalk it up to the monsoon season here in Delhi, which has made the sun a virtual stranger this past month. But I've had the line "dust from a distant sun/ will shower over everyone" on more or less constant replay in my head recently.

I've always loved Distant Sun in general, and this line in particular -- and in no small part because its imagery is so evocative, yet its meaning is so impossible to pin down. Like many of Neil's best lines, it's both allusive and elusive. "Dust from a distant sun/ will shower over everyone" -- does it suggest an intuition of cosmic interconnectedness (as Moby says, we are all made of stars)? Overcoming the distance between New Zealand and the rest of the world (despite that tyranny of distance)? A higher, invisible power that makes miserable things right in the long run (finding out wherever there is pain, there is comfort too, to reverse the old adage)?

I'll be interested to hear what others associate with this wonderful line ...

Whenever I've played this song it has always lifted me. And particularly that part of the song: it seems so full of optimism, hope, joy. The dust shower (doesn't sound so romantic put that way!) seems to me to be an eloquent way of saying that joy will be spread to all.

I've always interpreted this song as being about a father reacting to a son who is coming into his own and perhaps rebelling a bit from his parents. I think a lot of the lyrics make sense in this context. Perhaps the song was brought about by fight between father and son. One of those classic parent vs. teenager fights that leaves the parent thinking "I don't know what my teenager wants from me but I'll just do my best to let them know they're loved no matter what".

So, when I hear "Dust from a distant sun" what I actually think of is "Dust from a distant SON will shower over everyone". I interpret it as being about the way an argument between two members of a family can effect the rest of the household.

Seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
And dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

I've always taken it to mean dust showering down from the collision of distant worlds/planets/suns

quote:

Originally posted by Minty:
Seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
And dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

I've always taken it to mean dust showering down from the collision of distant worlds/planets/suns

I could never get my head around the physics of that scenario so I went for more of a metaphoric interpretation. Really, what astronomical circumstances would lead to several worlds colliding and how would such an impact generate enough solar dust to shower over everyone? Furthermore, who will be left to be showered after such a multi-global catastrophe? If such an event occurred I should think it would be rather bad form to write such a catchy and upbeat song about it but, then again, this is the man who penned "She Called Up"!

Furthermore, Neil clearly implies that the 7 worlds are owned by somebody ("When your seven worlds collide"). So, what I want to know is, who is this dark overlord who rules mightily over 7 distinct worlds only to allow them to collide with the aforementioned showering of solar particles etc.?

Ooh Paināporo wavers between the literal and the abstract!

"your seven worlds" must represent something other than actual orbs...

I guess the enigmatic nature of the words are part of their strength, meaning they can be interpreted/loved in different ways by different people at different times in different places (bit like Shakespeare's plays, actually).

I agree it's a bit baffling that Neil sings 'when your seven worlds collide,' (although I think he leaves out the 'your' at the conclusion of the song). To me, the seven worlds colliding line seems to be a poetic way of reworking the cliche 'the earth moved'...

I never really thought about what the song meant but it always sort of suggested the struggle between two people--one who is trying their darndest to understand the other but is struggling with it. So...the father-son thing really resonates for me and the "i don't pretend to know what you want...but I offer love" is the absolute coup de grace for me that the person trying to understand has an unconditional love for the misunderstood party in any case.

I don't necessarily hear "son" vs "sun" in the "dust from a distant sun will shower over everyone" but it's a clever way of working two sides of the street with word play--whatever your interpretation is--whether it's astrology inclined or more mundane family matters inclined.

so often the child in the family (be it a teen or otherwise) is the center of the family's universe (boom tesch!!!) that whatever is going on with that kid does affect the entire family.

didn't some reviewer once give Neil a hard time over this song when the album first came out? the guy moaned that Neil seemed to have an epic song here in Distant Sun but that he felt Neil had copped out by turning it into an ordinary love song.

Far from ordinary in my humble opinion..tis a song I never tire of hearing and has lots of good layers to wade through, it's as fresh today as it was back in the day.

Somehow at first I thought it was "two separate worlds collide / whenever I am by your side" - which perhaps would have been a bit on the nose for Neil.

The actual lyrics are about as far from the nose as he gets! I'm afraid for me it's just an abstract painting, albeit a pretty one.

I think it must be a reference to the fact that all the heavier elements (heavier than hydrogen) have to be created inside a star, then scattered throughout the cosmos by supernovas-exploding stars. So everything we humans are made of-carbon, oxygen, etc., came from the inside of a sun. Thus...dust from a distant sun.

I knew my astronomy degree would come in handy sometime!

I'm torn about what it could mean.

It invokes some religious overtones for me (i.e. "Dust from a distant sun showers over everyone = "God sees all and cares for all"), but at the same time it could just mean some mystical force that influences us all. It could be a reference to astrology for all I know.

In buddhism, they believe that people are trapped in a loop where the mind cycles between several distinct states...it's called "samsara." I don't remember how many states there are, but there are 6 or 7 I believe. They are things like boredom, stupidity, paranoia, and so forth. Only enlightened beings are free of this cycle.

So I think of the lyric absolutely as being about *one* person's 7 worlds...I know Neil didn't have this Buddhist concept in mind when he wrote that, but it makes sense. We all wear several different masks in our lives, and cycle through different states of mind. In a way every individual is a conglomeration of several personalities that can present themselves independent of one another, depending on the situation (not literally, like multiple personality disorder, but separate roles or MO's).

So for me, the 7 worlds colliding is like a union of all the disparate parts...when two people love each other, they have the power to calm that storm of battling "parts" of a person and unite them, or smash them, into one...it can make someone "whole" again.

The lyric is an image of a person conflicted and wounded by life, finding peace in the love of another...and the warmth and beauty that results.

The song is special to me because it presents love as something complicated and often difficult, sometimes even ugly -- but concedes that all that complexity is just obscuring love's true nature...underneath it is something hopeful, healing and unifying.

I love that interpretation, slowpogo.

Martine, I recall what you're referring to, but I believe it was Neil recounting a story in which someone he knew (not sure if it was another musician or a critic) told him he'd blown it when he followed such a Big Idea line like "Seven worlds collide" with the all-too-mundane "Whenever I am by your side" bit. For me, though, I've tended to see the lyric about "dust from a distant sun" as being some reference to the universality of experience - that, regardless of our individual struggles or circumstances, we're all part of a larger, more collective existence. (Or maybe it's about air pollution.)

I've always interpreted it as:

7 worlds will collide
whenever I am by your side

Meaning, that excitement, uncertainty, thrill, joy, butterflies in the stomach of when you're present with the person you love. For some reason, I also linked it with the 7 wonders of the world... I'm not sure why...

Dust from a distant sun
will shower over everyone

I took this as when you're with that special person, it lifts you and brightens up your world. It puts you in a feel good mood and that mood seems to rub on everyone and everything else in your life. Ha, it's funny, I never thought of it as having anything at all to do with planets...

I seem to remember reading/hearing somewhere that the chorus was something to do with Neil's connection with fans at live shows, but I can't remember if it was something that Neil actually said or whether it was someone else's interpretation. It was something along the lines of "Seven worlds will collide whenever I'm by your side" meaning fans' excitement at being there, right in front of him, listening to him play. "Dust from a distant sun will shower over everyone" was supposedly Neil (the "distant sun") and his music ("dust").

Wish I could remember where I'd read/heard this.

Never really thought about the meaning but like the idea of teens and their parents.

Most teens rebel against their parents. And parents have trouble with finding the right manual for those teens who ;

1.Don`t want well ment advice.
2.Feel a shame about the old couple and are
not afraid to say it out loud.
3.Want to stand on their own feet. They need to
fall and rise up themselves to findout who
they are and if what they learned is who they
are. Without their parents.
4.All parents worry while their youngsters
grow up

Hell what did i do to my parents 15 years ago mum was right, wait till you grow up you`ll see i`m right. And you know, she is right. As time goes by i saw my father growing into my grandfather fighting with my brother about the same things he did with his own father. Do this like this , don`t do that. etc etc maybe thats the dust ?? i dont know but its a nice song anyway

1:Tell me all the things you would change
I dont pretend to know what you want
When you come around and spin my top
Time and again, time and again

2: No fire where I lit my spark
I am not afraid of the dark
Where your words devour my heart
And put me to shame, put me to shame
When your seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
And dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

3:Still so young to travel so far
Old enough to know who you are
Wise enough to carry the scars
Without any blame, theres no one to blame
Easy to forget what you learn
Waiting for the thrill to return
Feeling your desire burn
As youre drawn to the flame
When your seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
And dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

4:And Im lying on a table
Washed out in a flood
Like a christian fearing vengeance from above
I dont pretend to know what you want
But I offer love
And seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
And dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

quote:

Originally posted by adidasman:
Martine, I recall what you're referring to, but I believe it was Neil recounting a story in which someone he knew (not sure if it was another musician or a critic) told him he'd blown it when he followed such a Big Idea line like "Seven worlds collide" with the all-too-mundane "Whenever I am by your side" bit. For me, though, I've tended to see the lyric about "dust from a distant sun" as being some reference to the universality of experience - that, regardless of our individual struggles or circumstances, we're all part of a larger, more collective existence. (Or maybe it's about air pollution.)

that is exactly the thing i was thinking of.

we see another example of neil's invoking the collective consciousness in another song in another line:

"this thing...is happenin' to us all"

which is how I've always interpreted that!

modified to add: this discussion inspired me to pull out an old fanclub disc that featured a rudimentary version of Distant Sun and while the melody is slightly different, the lyrics aren't quite developed as the final version. Travel to the moon is mentioned a few times. I had thought there were more celestial references in this earlier version, but just the moon and of course "dust from a distant sun" as well.

I hadn't known about the earlier moon-themed version of Distant Sun ... that suggests how Neil's pretty abstract painting, as Mister Sadly so nicely put it, may formerly have been a study in celestial realism!

I'm wondering whether anyone else has found their response to the line "dust from a distant sun" has changed -- or at least been complicated -- by People Are Like Suns?

Much as I like Painaporo's father/teenage son gloss (even though Liam would have been all of 9 when Neil wrote Distant Sun), I now can't help but retroactively see Paul's colliding worlds, burning up inside, in that song. Not that I think that Distant Sun was written specifically about Paul (as some say Black and White Boy was). It's just that a song's meanings inevitably change over time, absorbing the dust of other distant suns and supernovas ...

In any case, the two songs potentially speak to each other in unexpected, even wrenching, ways.

I've always heard Distant Sun as being about the complex, riveting, seemingly concrete and entirely subjective experiences of life, contrasted to the enormity of universal, objective reality. Which sounds really windy reading it back to myself.

It's a matter of scale and perception, like the planet earth compared to, say, an ant's life and grasp of same. We slog along totally involved with our lives and passions and heartbreaks, eyes to the ground figuratively and often literally. But all the while the dust of the cosmos is truly raining down on us all, affecting us though we rarely raise our eyes to perceive it, much less consciously receive it.

I don't hear any judgment in the song about the relative merits of either side of the heaven/earth equation, which to me is characteristic of Neil's work. His concern seems to be plumbing human emotion and experience, both internal and interpersonal, for the sake of exploration and illumination. The human's seven worlds colliding here on earth is as meaningful and important as the everlasting heavenly shower, although the wistfulness in the song makes me think he's longing for a bit more awareness/heaven/love in the ratio.

Or maybe I think too much.