Athena (the song)

[A64athena@aol.com]

Hello all.
You probably expect a response from me on the meaning of the song "Athena,"
especially since that is the name I go by on the list. Well, I have puzzled
over that song for quite some time now, and this is my opinion, however
humble, on its meaning.


My take on it is, the narrator is pleading with some sort of a figure, one
who is represented by wisdom (the goddess of), and is describing his
experiences with a woman who broke his heart, and was completely out of his
league.

The story I imagine to go something like this; an older, possibly married man
falls in love/becomes infatuated with a much younger prostitute, and seeks
affection where it is not to be had. Upon being faced with the reality that
this relationship has little or no long-term potential, he then tries, in
vain, to distance himself from the situation, and soon finds himself crawling
back for more.

She is "Just a girl" for two reasons. One, she is far too young for him, and
two, he tries to minimize her importance to him, and the feelings he has for
her.

"Consumed [with affection?], there was a beautiful white horse I saw on a
dream stage/He had a snake the size of a sewer pipe living in his rib cage"
seems to mean that he created an unrealistic image of her, as the answer to
all of his problems, when she indeed was not. 

"Look into the face of a child/Measure how long you smiled/Before the memory
claimed [his wife? his conscience?] /How long would children remain..." is
the narrator wondering,  how long do these illusions remain? This has
actually two meanings. One, in the broader sense, how long do illusions last
in general, when you look at a child, you smile, and then you realize that
they are not seeing an accurate perception of the world. How long do children
remain so, before they are faced with cold reality? And then, specifically,
how long would out narrator's illusion last? 

"Athena, you picked me up by my lapels and screamed 'leave her'" and we see
the voice of wisdom, and his realization that this is not a solution. He
proceeds to distance himself from her "And I hate the creep, I didn't mean
that...," is self-explanatory. In the end he does leave her "But I get along
[without her]" as opposed to "but I guess I'll get along," or perhaps
doesn't, but makes a decision and sticks to it.

Then we have the "bomb" bit. And I, for one, am sure it is "bomb," not
"whore" (anyone who disagrees might consider having their ears checked). As
an old friend-who's name I won't include-once said, "Well - bombs were
invented for a practical use but turned out to be a weapon." I may be
stretching things a bit here, but so were prostitutes. Apart from the obvious
reasons to become one (and that would be money), what they were meant for was
a quick <Riker>, and, in this case, turned out to be a weapon in the sense
that one broke his heart- an accident waiting to happen. Also, perhaps a
double meaning- as in a "bombshell".... 
 




Or am I reading to much into this?

Athena