I've been trying to decipher the lyrics, but I can't get anything.  "See the love there that's sleeping" and "They bought and sold you too"... I'm TRYING to get somewhere with those lyrics, but I can't piece them together and form the thesis of the song. 

Could someone enlighten me?

Apparently, George was at home reading the "I Ching" (the Chinese book of changes) and decided to apply it to his songwriting. So he randomly picked a book off the shelf and the first lines he saw were 'gently weeps' and wrote the rest of the song around it!

It's basically George's observations on what saddened him in the world at that time.

My take on those lyrics is:
Love there that's sleeping - where love goes unexpressed
They bought and sold you - people who are used, maybe a comment on the Beatles themselves being used.

What does everyone else think?

yeah i agree..it depressed george

The lyric is typical of George. A dry accusatory grumble with moments of inspiration. Just like Piggies.

Don't forget that there's some HOPE in this song.

"With every mistake we must surely be learning"

So it's not completely negative. It's  +  = 

Quoted from pc31, posted March 10, 2004, 3:11am at here

yeah i agree..it depressed george

But it's one of my favorite Songs by George.

First of all i want to say that this song is soooooooo great!
Here's my opinion on it! I will try to give my comments in the order of the actual lyrics

- I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
[looking at the world, George notices how love, the most important thing in people's life, has been forgoten. I think that he is refering to the begining of the decadence of the world. The forgoten love, which is now sleeping and laying deep within could also refer to the situation of the beatles themselves]

-while my guitar gently weeps
[the instrument with which he brings love and joy to the world is weeping because of what i've said. This suggests a very desperate situation! with each new time they are said, the situation gets even more desperate! ]

-I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
[the floor is the symbol for the world. It needs sweeping, meaning it is dirty and it has to be cleaned... love must return!]

-I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.
[George is talking about us, about me, about you, about everybody. Since love has been forsaken, we the children, the young people, we don''t know what love is because nobody told us about it. And he is amazed how come this is possible. Also he's telling us that we are being controlled, bought and sold like merchendise. Money have taken over our lives and people are doing anything for money] 

-I look at the world and I notice it's turning
[while he is weeping because of these things and because he is the only one that sees them. The world is turning signifies that the world keeps on living a normal life without caring about these matters. Nobody is stopping from his way to try to change these problems. Also this verse is suggesting that George too is a Fool on a Hill... i need to explain this in another thread about this song]

-With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
[He is hoping that we can learn... that we can change, but his guitar is still weeping. Maybe after all we can't learn... he is just expressing a hope!]

-I don't know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
No one alerted you.
[The same thing as before. George is talking about us! More and more of us are getting sucked into the abyss of hatred and superficiality and materialism and all he can do is weep...]

-I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
Look at you all...
Still my guitar gently weeps.
[... and while he is weeping, he sees that the love is still there sleeping within us, forgoten and forsaken, maybe never to be awakened... so he just looks at us and his guitar is weeping]

That's about it. I hope it makes some sense for you guys...

Wow! I have always loved that song, thanks for you opinions, as I've often pondered the inspiration/meaning of the lyrical content.

I think I can enlighten you all as to what the song talks about. George was on drugs. He may also have been making a massive statement about people that listen to the beatles music

I dont know if someone could chnge what they thought into something as complex as that of fool on the hill.

see I always trip over myself when I try to find the writers purpose, I just love the song because of how it makes me feel (though the white aulbum version makes me very angry), the anthology version which is the REAL version is sweet and sad and beautiful, who knows what George meant by it, all I know is it is amazing, maybe second favorite of all beatles songs, and I think that that is the most important thing about the song, how it makes ya feel, I'm sure George put a lot of feeling into it, and thats probably why it evokes feeling, but I don't think it matters what he meant by it as much as what it means to the listener matters, that kinda sounds weird as I read it back to myself, but I did the best I could.


Run-on sentence of the year!!

Quoted from Frightwolf, posted March 7, 2004, 5:20pm at here

Could someone enlighten me?

man, enlightenment sounds so over-rated, lol

personally I wouldn't know