High Hopes

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun
Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway
Do they still meet there by the Cut
There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world
Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder

With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river
Forever and ever

The song



Analysis of the song
The song “High Hopes” is written by David Gilmour’s (guitarist, lead singer, and one of the songwriters in Pink Floyd) girlfriend Polly Samson, inspired by an autobiographical angle by Gilmour. David Gilmour composed the music. The song is the last track at the final studio album “The Division Bell” by Pink Floyd, released in 1994.

We guess the “I” person in the text is David Gilmour, and here is a quote from him talking about the song:
"High Hopes" was really the last one, it was written after all the other (songs) were sort of, in some form or another. I think I wrote it in July or something. It was very, very quick. It's one of those ones that works, quickly, but beautifully, almost immediately and, I came up with a tiny bit of music, just had it on a cassette, just a few bars of piano. And then I went off to get away to a small house somewhere with my girlfriend, Polly, and try and make some progress on the lyric writing. And she gave me a phrase about something about before time wears you down. And I took it from there, and...got stuck into a whole sort of thing about, I suppose, my, it's autobiographical really, I suppose I'd have to say on that one, it's about my life, Cambridge life, and my childhood, I suppose. Yeah, we came up with it very, very quickly, we wrote the words to it in, most of the words to it in a day. And then I went back to the studio, with no one else there, the minute I got back, and put a demo down of it. Did everything myself on it, and it was virtually complete in a day. ”

When the song starts, you immediately get a harmonic, but melancholic feeling. The intro is instrumental and we can hear the sound of church bells and birds. You kind of get the feeling of lying in wet grass. The melancholic feeling you get at the start of the song, last until the last guitar solo at the end, but the two times when they sing the refrain, you get this pleased feeling that everything will be all right.

The lyrics and the music are in the same mood. Witch makes the song very comfortable to listen to. The song kind of gets you in a mood where all you want to do is to lie down, close your eyes, and think. Due to both the lyrics, the music, and the genius combination of everything a good song should contain.

The text is written in past tense. The words beyond and behind are mentioned several times, and the fact that they are telling about the past is very clear. Except from the refrain:
“The grass was greener. The light was brighter. The taste was sweeter. The nights of wonder” there is no word or phrase repeated. One word that may be stressed out would be the word horizon. Probably to point out that the horizon is one thing you should have in mind as the song goes by.


“High Hopes” is a song that almost every person can relate to. Or every person that can look back in their lives and see themselves having high hopes about the future, but when they get there, things aren’t as bright as they thought it would be. You can say the song is about growing up, looking forwards to living life, and then later, looking back again. The song can be about having a dream, and to have all this ambitions about yourself and how things should become. Then you were “In a world of magnets and miracles. Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary” and lived “in that dreamed of world. Encumbered forever by desire and ambition.” When you were young and had these thoughts about the future you felt that “The grass was greener. The light was brighter. With friends surrounded. The nights of wonder.” Then you get older, and even though how far you have come, you still aren’t pleased, because you had such high hopes. “Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us. To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side. Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again” This phrase from the text tells about you looking back on the dreams that just went up in smoke, and then you try to move on, but you don’t manage to, because you are “sleepwalking back again”.

So listening to this song makes me think about how it's never as good as it seems on the other side, and how we always dream about something new, never happy with what we have. Before you crossed the bridge, you dreamed about it, then, once you had, you dreamed about going back. The song is simply about how we never get pace with our lives, and never get truly satisfied. “There's a hunger still unsatisfied”