Pink Floyd Lyrics, Themes & Meanings: High Hopes

High Hopes
(written by Gilmour, Samson)

Lyrics:
Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun

Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway
Do they still meet there by the Cut

There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed-of world

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river

Forever and ever

Steve O'Rourke: "-lo?"
Charlie: "Yes!"
SOR: "Is that Charlie?"
Charlie: "Yes."
SOR: "Hello Charlie."

SOR: "Great."

Dave Gilmour: "High Hopes was really the last one, it was written after all the others were in some form or another. I think I wrote it in July [1993] or something. It was very very quick. It's one of those ones that works quickly but beautifully almost immediately and I came up with a tiny bit of music, just had it on a cassette, just a few bars of piano and then I went off to get away to a small house somewhere with my girlfriend Polly and try and make some progress on lyric writing and she gave me a phrase, something about 'before time wears you down' and I took it from there and got stuck into a whole sort of thing about — I suppose my — it's autobiographical, I suppose. I'd have to say on that one, it's about my life, Cambridge life, my childhood I suppose. We came up with it very very quickly, we wrote most of the words to it in a day and then I went back to the studio with no-one else there, the minute I got back and put a demo down of it, did everything myself on it, and it was virtually complete in a day."

In an additional allusion to the theme of (non-) communication on the album, at the very end of this track can be heard a brief and altogether unsuccessful telephone conversation between Steve O'Rourke (the band's manager) and Polly Samson's son Charlie.

TRACK LISTING
Cluster One