Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?

Song Meaning

The song opens with a hazy, disoriented feeling, like waking up with a mental fog that won't quite lift. The narrator describes sleep clouds clinging to their head, making thoughts feel like an unread book filled with dust. This immediate imagery sets a tone of internal struggle and a reluctance to fully engage with reality, suggesting a mind weighed down by something unseen. The core tension seems to revolve around a desire for detachment and self-preservation against an encroaching, corrupting force. The repeated chorus, "Can't be bought and you can keep tomorrow / Can't be saved, there ain't no flies on me / Can't be caught, the plague that ate your soul / Can keep away from me," acts as a defiant mantra. The narrator insists on their own incorruptibility, drawing a line between themselves and a destructive 'plague' that has clearly affected someone else, perhaps the person they are addressing. There's a striking contrast between the internal state and the external world. While the narrator grapples with mental cobwebs, the evening rain outside "waltzes round my feet," painting reflections and accompanied by the sounds of laughter and the "smell of sin." This juxtaposition highlights a world that continues, vibrant and perhaps morally ambiguous, while the narrator remains somewhat detached, observing from a distance. The final verse introduces a flicker of hope or self-awareness, with the narrator questioning if a "childish whim or a pretty rhyme" might have been a moment of salvation. Ultimately, the lyrics' power lies in their evocative, almost dreamlike portrayal of mental resistance. The repetitive, declarative chorus creates a sense of determined, almost desperate, self-protection. The ambiguity of the "plague" and the external world's "sin" leaves the listener to ponder the nature of the threat and the narrator's fragile victory, making the internal battle feel both specific and universally understood.