From the recording Rivers ( Vol V of The Gods The Gates and The Sweet Waters)
Well the title says it all. Maybe you've felt this way in your life in this day and age, with so many terrible things going on in the world everyday, bombarded as we are with catastrophic news, and not much improvement in sight. Sometimes I do feel it is all just a matter of time before civilisation collapses and before some major tragedy touches my life. I've been feeling that since I was 13 and old enough to see what was going on in the world.
But maybe you are wondering what the biblical scenery is doing in a pagan song. Well remember that all the myths in the Bible can be traced to Pagan sources, that the Hebrews themselves were pagans, before the Egyptian Moses (remember Thutmoses, Dedumose etc.) exhorted them to follow monotheism, likely created by Akhenaten, whom we are certain wrote the "Lord's Prayer" for himself as the one god, the sun god, in order to stop the weakening of Egypt through the division of powers among so many priesthoods. (It was the division of Egypt into many pagan priesthoods that allowed the pagan Jewish Hyksos to invade Egypt in the first place.) So actually it is quite possible that Christians and Jews are actually worshipping an Egyptian pharaoh when they worship the old testament god.
"Little boats of love" has a more complex meaning, dealing with the symbolism of a boat as a saviour--so again an almost Christian or Jesus like image.(You can learn about how Jesus as a pagan god by reading The Jesus Mysteries, or the Pagan Christ, or Jesus as a Roman Flavian creation used to mentally disarm the violent Jewish messianic sects in Ceasar's Messiah) But this saviour is love, or Love. Cupid. Under the Romans, the powerful Eros was broken up into miniature fat cupids, many of them.
A possibly Roman comprehension of love. Why I like this is that rather than projecting Love as a powerful force beyond us, it makes love something we all have. We are all "saviours," that is we can all save and help each other through love. So the meaning in the song here is that the little boat of love is the love in each of us. We will not be saved by a big boat, a messianic saviour, a Noah's ark, but by the love in our own breasts and how we respect the love in others.
Lyrics
Waiting for the Tragedy (Animae)
© Roman Rhodes, 2009
We’re all waiting for the tragedy to come.
Squeezing the tube of life for a last bit of fun.
All our dreams and plans are on the run
from the men who rule the world and make the guns.
:When we’re waiting, oh, waiting for the tragedy to come:
Living in a constant state of fear.
Exhausted by others’ wailing and tears.
Hope to drown the noise with more beer.
But drugs don’t stop the facts or change the gears.
So you keep on escaping, waiting for the tragedy to come.
And will you still have all your pleasant dreams
With your heart made of globs of plasticine,
Stuck with all the things you do that are mean?
Like leaving ‘em waiting with their rowboats by a stream.
Like leaving ‘em waiting, leaving ‘em waiting for you to come.
And when the tragedy finally arrives
And you’re panicking with the crowd to stay alive,
Floating in the sea like a toy in side a tub,
Will you be watching for the little boats of love?
Watching, waiting for the little boats to come.
Wars and illness robbers, rapists, priests.
Have nothing to say to save me in the least.
I won, lost, left and been bereft of love
Now I stand on the deck waiting for the dove.
I’m waiting for the little boat to come.
Yeah, I’m waiting, waiting for your love.
Yeah, waiting for you little boat of love. Magic love, your love.