Talk:Tales of Brave Ulysses/Archive 1

I'm not at all keen on the interpretation of the song's lyrics. Surely Odysseus never rode upon a steamer... And where in Ithaca was the heartland of the Winter?

Personally, I think it's a song about a Greek island holiday and falling in love, presumably with a local girl.
 * No, it's about the Odyssey, it just references events that didn't happen in the book. I changed the page accordingly. -71.107.254.235 04:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that the song is about becoming trapped in paradise, perhaps by a drug. The drug is personified by the girl, Aphrodite, who tempts the singer to the verge of drowning in a sea of ecstasy. You can see allusions to some sort of mythic vision: he sees the mermaids when he first arrives from the cold winter lands, indicating that he is drawn in to the mythos of paradise. But his arrival is tainted with the tales of Ulysses, not that the traveler carried a copy of the poems with him but that his fate is entwined with Ulysses' curse. The traveler will be lost on that sea of ecstasy, always on the verge of drowning and never able to save himself.

You can see certain allusions, I would think to cocaine, in the imagery around the "sparkling waves" that call him to "kiss their white laced lips," like lines of cocaine. After that, he receives his vision of the girl, who "drowns" him in her body, "carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind." The last is perhaps a reference to the effects of the drug.

It's possible also that the drug is love and he has fallen for a girl, a siren who will not let him go back to the land of winter. Her brown skin might indicate that she is native to this paradise and will not leave his home, so our hero stays, forever wandering in love in a place far from home.

I'm not sure what all the colors in the song could indicate, but most of the verses mention colors... 153.90.140.246 18:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a place to discuss the possible interpretations of song meanings. Unless it is quite obvious or the composer has stated its meaning, its possible interpretations should not be on the page. --Midnight Rider 03:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

song similarity
It is mentioned this song's resemblance to some other songs, but the vocal melody is nearly identical to parts of Uriah Heep's "Walking In Your Shadow" from "Very 'eavy... Very 'umble," although "Tales of Brave Ulysses" came first by 2-3 years and is much more popular. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.34.189.194 (talk) 22:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

"Made to scan"?
What does this mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.64.48 (talk) 09:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think "The music originated from bassist Jack Bruce's ability to match his vocals to the meter of the song to a riff, adding it with his vocals to what had previously been a poem but was then expanded by Clapton into a song" makes things any clearer. --Deke42 (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2013 (UTC)