The Climber & Turn & Run Thoughts

In my opinion the Climber is about Neil's relationship with his mother and dealing with her death...it's also about living in such a way as if he's always trying to gain her approval (hence the 'climbing').

Turn & Run on the other hand is a reference to prostitution I think and the struggle to break free from it's grasp...

Comments?

quote:

Turn & Run on the other hand is a reference to prostitution

What made you think of that? (what do you do for a living btw???? heheheee )

The Boring answer.....
Neil has always said Turn and Run was about considering a job in the army and a local theme fate in Te Awamutu.(he was dressed up in his soldiers uniform with his plastic gun.)

.....could also be about a bad case of diarrhoea

heeheehee!


(your qualified replier or the day)
Silke

Te he he! you guys are so funny. I acctualy did read somewhere that Neil was concidering a place in the army. (Why I Don't know) but then I Don't Ask Whytehehe! Anyway ...

cheers Kate.

I don't know but I read/heard somewhere that he had written just about all the songs before his mother died, because there was all that set back in release at the time. I just thought he'd added the last line later, I really don't know.

I heard the same thing about turn and run - the whole carnival thing - a float that was themed peace and war, and Neil was war. Aww, can you imagine a little Neil dressed in camoflauge gear?!

Awww! So cute!

That is a funny statement to day the brain saying "Turn & Run is about prostitution. Very interesting interpretation, can you expand on what you mean by it. I don't want to put you in the spot or anything. Did you like use the wrong word.
To me that's the beauty of Neil Finn's music and lyrics. It can mean so many things to many people.
In my opinion (IMO) "The Climber" is a statement on society and melancholy:

"Beside me now are strangers to my eyes
Might be getting crazy might be wise"

This opening line is a classic opening to the great philosophical insights existing throughout the "One Nil" album. Effectively explains how humans can be so distanced from each other. People just don't seem to talk each other now days and everyone is saw caught up in their own world and scared to ask the big questions. Everyone possesses so many inhibitions. I mean when was the last time you wanted to talk to a good looking stranger on the bus, but didn't want to look like a weirdo.

Now "Turn & Run" being about Neil going to war in his childhood. That's so funny.
Sometimes you wonder if Neil made this reason up
Didn't Neil write this song in 1999. Based on the quality of it, if he did write in his childhood, surely he must have released it in some form earlier, like in Crowded House.
Personally this song powerfully conjures up symbols of my broken childhood and being teased and bullied @ those damn Catholic schools.

"You cold killers of innocence
Against us there's no defence
Your flash and wickedness will slowing bring you down again"

And the bit about:

"You know where I stand
Holding my plastic gun"

could be a metaphor (another way of saying things) for how many times we wanted to burst out in anger towards our loved ones and family when they do something upsetting.
God, I could talk about Neil Finn lyrics all day, they are so sublime and so ambiguous. How he does that, reaching a such a state of poetic resonance, is a skill so profound that it's almost genius; something never been achieved by any popular rock and roll artist in the last half century.

When Neil talked about Turn and Run, just before he played it at Helen's, he said it came from being in a parade, and it was a war float, and on one side, the kids were angels, and they were prancing around and waving to their friends, and he was a soilder, and he took it very serious and stood upright and was serious.

He mentioned that was how he held his guitar now or something.

That's what I remember, haven't listened to the tape for awhile.

I'm sure I remember hearing/reading that Neil wrote the climber after reading about two guys getting lost climbing Mt Everest. One of the was a Kiwi (I think) who phoned his mother on his moblile shortly before dying. - Or perhaps I just made this up.

I'm only questioning the real reasons for these song for 1 main reason. In "The Cold Live At The Chapel" concert, shown nationally on Australian free to air TV, Neil said:

"hopefully there's a few more thinking songs on this album that get you to a higher place"

Now it is without doubt Neil is popular and influential artist. His sophistication is immeasurable. So providing odd reasons to the meaning behind his songs is sometimes questionable. I'm not discounting that "The Climber" is about the NZ mountaineers who got lost in Mt Everest. In fact I read that in an interview too.
All I'm trying to say is Neil is a smart guy who knows the power of his lyrics. I think @ his position in the music industry he has the luxury to be a bit philosophical.
Hence IMO the title One Nil surely couldn't be just about his son Elroy's soccer team losing 1-0 in a simple game of football. Maybe it is and I wouldn't be surprised , but I think deep down Neil is being philosophical and trying to make a statement on society. Didn't he say in Wherever You Are:

I'm the one who reads your mind
See my life in your design

The numbers 1 & 0 have been a mathematical revelation in the history of mankind. So it being just about soccer doesn't sound right.
I probably sound crazy here, but there was a discussion on this forum about how One Nil being a bad title. I just think there is a chance Neil may be aiming at something deeper. I think Neil deep down will aim to be a John Lennon or Bob Dylan. He has said many times before he always wanted to make a song that was a soundtrack to the mind set of humans @ at any given time, like the John Lennon song "Imagine" or The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" or Radiohead's "Creep".

So what does everybody think, is Neil making up these reasons to what made him write these songs and what the songs are really actually about???

On the Vh-1 'Uncut' show, Neil prefaced Turn & Run with the story about the parade in his youth.

Michealp--there was a Kiwi named Rob Hall who was an expedition leader on Mt. Everest who died on the mountain in May of 1996. He was patched through his radio to his wife, and he was able to talk to her before he died. He was stranded up at about 26,000 feet, and was too weak and debilitated to make it down; likewise, his partners were too wasted from their own climbs to get back up there to save him.

It was all immortalised in the IMAX film "Everest" that was being done at the same time.

That may be the same man?


OK, back to the topic at hand!


vch

Val, I had heard that story too. That is why "The Climber" really gets to me anymore since September 11. If that is what Neil was writing about, it is almost parallel. All those poor people calling their loved ones on their cell phones from the Twin Towers, and the planes, to say goodbye, knowing they weren't going to make it out. It's heartbreaking.
I had heard a lot of comparison between "Turn and Run" and that day, but "The Climber" is the one that has changed for me since September 11.
Julie

Turn and Run is my favorite song on the album. Something about the chorus just gets me. The Climber is interesting musicaly, I love the bow guitar.

heather

Thanks for that ValerieH - when I was posting my orginal reply - I wasn't entirely sure whether I really had heard/read the story or whether I had just made it up. At the Palace gig in London Neil said that Turn & Run was "really inspired by a memory of me being on a float in the Te Awamutu annual A & P show ... I was in the War & Peace float, all of the little peace people were dressed in white tunics.. and I had on all of the camoflage gear and a little plastic gun and I stood there and I was so serious". He then forgot how to play the guitar intro.

quote:

Originally posted by Big Head:
[qb]The title One Nil surely couldn't be just about his son Elroy's soccer team losing 1-0 in a simple game of football. Maybe it is and I wouldn't be surprised , but I think deep down Neil is being philosophical and trying to make a statement on society. . .The numbers 1 & 0 have been a mathematical revelation in the history of mankind. So it being just about soccer doesn't sound right. [/qb]

Everything anyone writes about is based on an experience - something they did, saw, read, etc. Good writing compares thoughts, emotions and actions and shows you their connections. Superb writing makes you find those connections yourself.

As far as the title One Nil goes, he could have chosen it for several reasons: His son's soccer game; it could be the fact that it is an anagram of the phrases "On Neil" or "No Line" (who knows?); or perhaps it is a nod to one of the most basic elements in the universe, hydrogen - the atomic structure of which gave rise to the creation of binary code, which is a system of "1"'s and "0"'s by which computers read all their commands. . .

OK, so I'm getting way out there. My point is, it could very possibly be titled "One Nil" for all these reasons. Maybe, after releasing "Try Whistling This," he felt his post-CH "scorecard" was 1-0 in his favour, and he wanted to see how this new album turned out. I don't know. But it adds to the enjoyment of the music when you're trying to get inside his mind.

Big Head - Very well said in both your posts. I too would like to know how turn & run could be a reference to prostitution.

If this song was only released a while ago, I'd think it was written specificly for the Sep11 events. (yes, I know we've been throught this). Anyway, It's a brilliant song & could easily be the breakthrough US hit Neil's been looking for (unless he dosen't want to become too commercial !?!).

The climber on the other hand is as equally well written as T&R. One Nil really does have to go down as one of the all-time classic albums ever - every song is a petential single + ????? I don't really know what I'm writing today.

Can anyone tell me what you think Astro refers to? (Astro off TWT)

Finnbo,Fuddbo & Juddbo -exactly right according to Neil at the one nil concert i went to at Ipswich...about him being on a carnival float and dressed up etc. -i seem to remember the plastic gun just being part of his costume...(?)

Neil indeed said on the VH-1 Uncut show that Turn and Run was partly based on his childhood memory of his 'role' as a soldier on a parade float, but again Neil does change his stories around, so don't believe everything he says. And now I guess I'm gonna get flamed for this: I find One Nil less and less interesting over time, only Secret God, Anytime, Sunset, Hole and Elastic are wearing well for me, and that e-bow annoys me. I get more pleasure from Try Whistling This than One Nil... but I still expect to rush out and buy the next installment of new Neil songs.

I think the reference to prostitution is from:-

History ever repeats with Neil Finn - Neil Finn talks to Graham Reid, 24.03.2001, New Zealand Herald

Full Interview Transcript:-

"...Turn and Run off One Nil?

Originally written as a potential song for Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann's new movie. I got approached for songs for it but before I'd even had any communication with them I wrote that song. As it turned out they really liked it but it wasn't appropriate, they wanted something else. Even lyrically it was based on what I perceived the film to be about. She's a prostitute and he's a songwriter trying to write a song to her about staying true to their love even if the world is conspiring against them. That was the origin of the lyric, it's about staying true to love and as a result the lyric is direct."

PS URL for the article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=178849

On the Sessions at West 54th DVD, Neil said that Astro wasnt really about anything. He said that he had the basic idea about "one liners borrowed from a film". Im sure it has some other meanings, but thats what he said there.
BTW I just learned how to play some of Turn and Run on my guitar last night!!

heather

quote:

Originally posted by enzenwine:
[qb]
As far as the title One Nil goes, he could have chosen it for several reasons: His son's soccer game; it could be the fact that it is an anagram of the phrases "On Neil" or "No Line" (who knows?); or perhaps it is a nod to one of the most basic elements in the universe, hydrogen - the atomic structure of which gave rise to the creation of binary code, which is a system of "1"'s and "0"'s by which computers read all their commands. . .
But it adds to the enjoyment of the music when you're trying to get inside his mind.[/qb]

That was the point I was trying to make. Thanks for hitting the nail on the head enzenwine . Notice the new DVD coming out and how it's entitled "7 Worlds Collide. Well the funds for that I heard was directed towards the Afghanistan refugees. The title was very appropriate, especially during the peak of the terrorist crisis. I like the use of these symbols in the titles. It adds meaning.
Anyone notice during the recent web cast that Dave Dobbyn was whining about nuclear weapons? And @ the start Neil said something about how he felt concerned about the environment and the effect storms were having in the Philippines and some other countries. I'm glad to know these musicians are concerned. That's why I believe One Nil is a "state of the times kinda album. You have Eskimo's in Hole In The Ice and Neil saying you don't need teachers or education. And then he's saying take the Rest Of The Day Off from work. And he's hungry for the world travels in Into The Sunset etc etc.