Paul
User
Platinum Boarder
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Second glance at The Prisoner - 2006/10/08 21:29
I first heard The Prisoner when an audio recording was posted on the website. I listened to it once or twice, didn't really get to grips with what it was on about, decided it was not one of Jake's best songs, and forgot about it.
One of the pleasures of Jake in a Box has been hearing the song again and having the time to think more about it. I like the song far more now. It seems to me to display a compassion for both sides in a conflict which is very similar to that shown by Homer at the end of The Iliad (as clumsily represented in the dire film Troy, in the encounter between King Priam and Achilles). The 'young foreign soldier' and the prisoner have both experienced, and lost, the good things in life (love, freedom/homeland). Both are victims of war: the prisoner is to be pitied for his loss of freedom, his land and his loved ones; the young foreign soldier is likewise to be pitied: he is young, far from home, far from the girl he loves. The prisoner has been brutalised by war and will kill the soldier: this is horrific, but his anger and fury at all that he has lost is understandable. The prisoner has lost everything; the soldier is about to lose all he has left (his life).
In my mind I cannot help but find a resonance in the song with the current situation in the Middle East. The Prisoner is truly an unsettling but powerful song.
These are just my ramblings: the views of others are welcome!
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