Quote:
Originally Posted by Gavin B.
At the end the song even Julie, her boyfriend Terry and the millions of people swarming like flies in the Waterloo Underground are just like him and being part of a crowd on the same island will never immunize people from the pain of isolation. The paradox is that loneliness is the universal bond that unites us all to the human condition. Man for all of his conceptual intelligence has created a social system that dehumanizes him on a daily basis.
What makes the song brilliant is Davies' talent for telling a very involving story with so few words, and ultimately he leaves it up to the listener to figure out the existential sadness of the story he's telling.
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I believe that Davies' true genius was that as the narrator contemplates existence from a hospital bed, he leaves the listener to realize the innocent beauty of not loneliness, but being alone and feeling happiness. Maybe once the narrator felt lonely, but at the point of narration, he has indeed reached a state of happiness in his separation from society.
And that, my friend, may be the saddest thing of all.