Continuing with the religious aspects of the lyrics, we have the song "Smile" opening with these words:
"Would this do, to make it all right,
While sleep has taken you where I'm out of sight?"
Here we have David Gilmour, asking the ghost, apparently, if he can make things right.
(The religious act of atoning; making peace with someone whom you've done wrong.)
The song continues:
"I'll make my getaway
Time on my own
Search for a better way
To find my way home to your smile
Wasting days and days on this fight
Always down, and up half the night
Hopeless to reminisce through the dark hours
We'll only sacrifice what time will allow us
You're sighing...
All alone though you're right here
Now it's time to go from your sad stare
I'll make my getaway
Time on my own
Leaving's a better way
To find my way home to your smile"
(end)
Apparently the "fight" that David has been having with this individual has caused him sleepless nights, so he has come back to the island to make peace with the ghost, in hopes of being welcomed by him when they meet in the afterlife. I say ghost even though the lyrics include lines like:
"Hopeless to reminisce through the dark hours
We'll only sacrifice what time will allow us
You're sighing..."
and
"All alone, though you're right here
Now it's time to go from your sad stare."
My feeling is that Mr. Gilmour is having mental ("imaginary") conversations with the ghost, and imagining its reactions to their conversation.
David offers to leave, searching for 'a better way' of reconcilliation. The island is clearly the ghost's "home".
In the next song, "A Pocket Full of Stones", "He" (the ghost apparently) is spoken of:
"He's sending stones skimming and flying
Circles spinning out his time
Though the earth is dying his head is in the stars
Chances are this spark's a lifetime
Out of touch he'll live in wonder
Won't lose sleep he'll just pretend
In his world he won't go under
Turns without him until the end
Rivers run dry but there's no line on his brow
Says he doesn't care who's saved
It's just the dice you roll, the here and now
And he's not guilty or afraid
One day he'll slip away
Cool water flowing all around
In the river and on the ground
Leave a pocketful of stones and not believe in other lives
Until then he'll live in wonder
He won't fight or comprehend
In his world he won't go under
Turns without him until the end"
(end)
There are many curious statements in this song. Here's one:
"In his world he won't go under."
Apparently he
did "go under" when he was alive as a person. He drowned.
And what of this? "Though the earth is dying his head is in the stars."
If the ghost is Paul (and I think it is, btw), then was only his head sent into space, while his body was buried in the Earth? Is that how he could be "perfectly still" on the hill in "Fool on the Hill" while simultaneously having been shot into space?
This verse is curious: "Rivers run dry but there's no line on his brow
Says he doesn't care who's saved
It's just the dice you roll, the here and now
And he's not guilty or afraid."
This seems to be some of what David feels the ghost told him.
In light of some musical clues that Paul may have lived anonymously after he left the Beatles, disguised as a preacher, ("He one holy roller" from "Come Together" and the Neil Young clues in "My Last trip To Tulsa"), it would seem that he wanted to "save the world" when he was alive, but now that he's dead, he doesn't care who's saved, and he realizes that people's fates are "a roll of the dice" and that he's neither guilty nor afraid.
(No "religious guilt" for things he may have done in life, and he's not afraid of what will come when he ceases to be Earth-bound, and goes into the heavenly realms.
Perhaps he's waiting 'til his friend David Gilmour passes on to join him before he ascends to a higher place.)
The last song on the album, "Where We Start" is a description of how David Gilmour and Polly spent their last day on the island. It's interesting that in the book of lyrics that the CD comes in,
there's a picture of the two of them walking next to woods that look very much like those shown in the "Paul Is Found Where?" thread:
I believe, however, that it's supposed to show the two of them back at home, having returned from Castellorizon.
I think that the "On an Island" album gives us new clues about PID that we haven't known before, if it's actually about David visiting the ghost of his friend Paul McCartney (and I suspect that it is):
1. That Paul's last abode and place of hiding may have been Castellorizon. This would be confirmed somewhat by the nautical sounds at the start of the song "Here Come the Sun King" on Abbey Road.
2. That Paul may have eventually taken his life by swimming out to sea 'til he drowned. The "long swim" suggested by the howling winds and "swimming against the tide" suggested in the 15 repetitions of "She's So Heavy" on "Abbey Road". He swam out on a stormy night to drown and be with her (Sylvie) in spirit. (Could have been Marissa, of course. What ever became of her?) In any event, he swam out to sea to die to be with his love, and now the ghosts of the two 'live' "On An Island", Castellorizon.
My best guess. But in the book that comes with the CD, under the song title "Castellorizon" it says, "Michael, Tony, here ever after".
So this album may have nothing to do with Paul, and everything to do with Michael and Tony, whoever they are.
I think they may be two of David's sons. Being "here ever after" in their thoughts.
It's a strange album, as I said. But Pink Floyd seemed to have had a lot to say about PID, and I just have to think this album must as well. All due respect to Michael and Tony, none-the-less.