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Add Your New Review About The Song The Reviews about Beneath The Balcony (page 1/1) ------ performed by Iron & Wine Rivera-Dali sky | Reviewer: Bryan Forest&Burnit | 12/11/09 This song has a beautiful rhythmic flow. The images conjured by the words make me wish I had skill with canvas; I can see this scene peppered with high majestic figures (the hero, the king, the singer) surrounded by the gray mundane, dangerous, and destructive industrial components of this world (the gun maker, meth, soft-handed boys) under the balcony clashing in some muralized, Rivera-Dali sky. But I am no artist and I just sit at work listening and wondering what this all means social/economic inequality? | Reviewer: Andrew Cone | 12/22/08 I think this song is about social inequality in the US. The point of the song is that disadvantaged people in the US struggle to find a coherent, fair reason their lives are so difficult, and end up clinging to "God and guns." The "game" described in the first few lines is the US market economy, which seemingly let's everyone play. But unfortunately there are "cheaters:" those who are born into privilege or have been lucky or unscrupulous enough to succeed. To "grace the game" is to participate in the systems by which our society metes out power and wealth, thereby granting them legitimacy. The people who do not play the game (or been cheated at it), are left with petty, self-destructive means of actualization. They take meth and race cars because that's all there is that makes them feel alive. The "hero begging change" is the archetypal homeless Vietnam vet who, despite having played the "game" honorably, is left begging for change by the interstate on-ramp. His sword is across his knees in the way a Bible or a prayerbook is across a mourner's knees: it is an abstract anodyne for something that has no satisfactory explanation. The rest of the song follows this theme. The "king" represents the majesty of power, specifically as it is held by things like law enforcement, the military, and the presidency. Beam pictures this king as living in a vast palace, from which he occasionally emerges on his balcony to proclaim stuff. The "kids beneath the balcony" are the downtrodden people who fetishize executive power, so they get at close to the king's balcony as they can. They like it when the king executes the condemned, because it gives them a sense of punishing the "man to blame" for their unhappy states. They wait for the king to shake their sweaty hands, to be graced by his presence. But they are just left to sweat endlessly, perhaps from stress or hard work, because the king has no genuine interest in meeting them. To me, these "kids beneath the balcony" represent the sort of people who are obsessed with rooting out welfare queens, illegal aliens, queers, terrorists, the unpatriotic, or who ever else at whom the king directs our rage. The song pities these "kids" more than it judges them, and this is appropriate. Beneath the Balcony | Reviewer: Anonymous | 11/13/08 I love Beam's music. It is beautiful, simple, and amazing in every way. It's hard to believe something so simple can invoke so much emotion. I don't understand what this song is about though. Could someone please explain? Add Your New Review About The Song