What Elusive Butterfly Means to Me

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Daniel H
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What Elusive Butterfly Means to Me

Post by Daniel H »

The ideas that follow are strictly my own feelings and thoughts about "Elusive Butterfly". I am not implying Bob had these notions or conclusions in mind when he wrote the song, although he did say somewhere that it's related to longing. I have considered for many years why the song affected me so deeply. This is my attempt to explain it, to myself, and maybe others. I want to acknowledge the influence C.S. Lewis' writings have had upon the conjectures I offer here.


There are experiences in a person's life which are so stirring they leave permanent engravings in the memory. These moments sometimes arise from the commonplace material of everyday life--sunbeams through a window, snatches of birdsong, a garden glistening with morning dew--but are suddenly endowed with piercing significance. Their beauty slices into our hearts like a razor, and evokes pangs of longing so keen our hearts ache.

I had a moment like this the first time I heard "Elusive Butterfly". The feeling it gave me resembled the vivid nostalgia which childhood memories sometimes arouse, but there was a difference. Longings from childhood recollections have a defined source--events from the past. The yearning I felt now had no distinct origin--I didn't know what it was I longed for. I think most of us have had this experience. A poem, a song, or a sunset seem to remind us of something, something we desire intensely but cannot pin down. It isn't beauty itself we long for, because the beauty of these things is already there, right in front of us. It is as if a precious, fundamental piece of memory is absent, a memory which would restore complete understanding if only we could recover it. The experience is therefore accompanied by a bittersweet sense of loss. This poignancy, in fact, is part of what makes the experience so penetrating.

I have never heard a song in which the imagery and mood are more suggestive of this kind of longing than in Butterfly. The lyrics are resonant with yearning and loss, and float along a melody as lonely and beautiful as a bird crying from an empty sky. It unsealed windows in my mind which revealed quiet fields of wildflowers and tall grasses--a lovely, lonesome country of yellows, whites and greens--rustling beneath dense blue skies.

In the song, it is morning, and the stillness is uninterrupted except for "the sound of something moving" in the wind past someone's window. A moment later, a sound can be heard coming from "an open meadow". What is this faint "something" gliding past the window, redolent of faraway music as it rides the breeze into the surrounding fields? These images and questions (sharpened to a cutting edge by the haunting tune) aroused in me the first stirrings of the feeling I am trying to describe. The person by the window finds the matter compelling enough to get up and look outside. Although the singer is referring here to the sound of his own footsteps, we don't know that at first. All that can be observed is "a fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow". I think that is the most evocative line in the entire song. When we try to identify the origin of our longing- that ephemeral "something" behind the beauty which so moves us--the most we can glimpse is a receding echo of whatever it was--a leaf which has just stopped moving from the touch of something that whispered past it, ripples in a pond which cease the moment that we notice them. There is surely no better word to describe the thing we are searching for than elusive.

Our search, as the song's title implies, is represented by a man's pursuit of a butterfly. It is no easy matter to find a tangible symbol of something which is invisible and unknown, but the image of a butterfly reflects what attributes we do recognize about the force behind our longing. The words, "Out on the new horizon, you may see the floating motion of a distant pair of wings" suggest it is faraway, beautiful, drifting, has no fixed direction, lurks on the horizon out of our reach, and can't be identified with certainty. The images throughout the song are repeatedly qualified by the words "may" and "might", just as our longing for the bright "something" behind our yearnings comes and goes as it wants. It is like an unexpected wind on a clear day; it appears whether we were anticipating it or not, defying our wish to summon it whenever we desire. The experience is so meaningful we actually long for the longing itself.

The refrain is initiated by the gentle exhortation, "Don't be concerned, it will not harm you..." Again, the singer is referring to himself, but it reflects an aspect of our longing we often don't notice--the voice behind it, whatever it is, almost speaks to us in tones of welcome. Even though it evades our grasp, it is anything but threatening. It is mild and lovely, even inviting. This is not surprising, since it uses beauty to communicate itself; how can something that loves beauty that much be hostile?

The singer finally clarifies his purposes with the signal phrase, "It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of". And with that, the essence of the song, and this discussion, is fully illuminated. He is chasing a thing he cannot name, cannot see (since the butterfly is only a symbol), but it is vital enough that his struggle to catch it makes him breathless. He not only describes the butterfly as elusive, but also calls it the butterfly of love. Perhaps he means sensual love, but he does not connect it to a person or romantic situation here, only to the indefinite "something" which draws him. If it is not a human being, it must still be something personal in nature because only a self-aware entity can give or receive love. Even with that qualification in mind, though, we are still left left with the question of what it is.

A possible answer resides in a concept common to some religious interpretations of life. (Before you get turned off by the word "religious", at least give yourself a chance to consider the idea.) A foundational concept of Judaism and Christianity is that man has fallen from an original state of intimacy with a loving and kind creator into a condition of profound alienation from him. When this separation occurred, direct communications were cut off, and man was no longer able to perceive him in any direct sense. Consequently, the creator's character, and even his existence, could only be inferred from the things we perceive around us. Some of those things are terrible indeed--disease, natural disasters, poverty--but in this system of thought they are an accompanying consequence of man's fall. But the beauty that remains amid these ruins is the medium of a voice that is pure, sincere, enchanting and irresistibly lovely. It is also somehow familiar-- we know it, but we don't know it. Something in the voice tells us all would be well if we could only be reunited with the one it belongs to. Man's fall would be undone. But who IS the one it belongs to? He vanishes the moment we almost see him, and we can't remember his name.

Elusive butterfly. The great mystery we ache to solve. God.
Last edited by Daniel H on Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You'll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow...
rob68
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Post by rob68 »

I think I hear the echo of Bob's chuckling in the canyons of my mind that his little song caused so much introspection. :D

I understand that deep feeling of longing that you describe. I only get that feeling from a handful of songs by a handful of my favorite artists....Bob, Patty Griffin etc. To me it feels like wanting to always feel the way you feel right at that moment. Not necessarily sad, but just completely in touch with your feelings. A feeling of wanting to be a better person....live a more fulfilling life etc...

That's great Dan, if that's what you get out of it. I think Dan's post proves that the song basically does what most of the best songs should do. Not answer all the questions. A song can really only be as deep to you as your own projections of it are. I mean, technically it could also actually be a song about someone stalking someone, and stopping just short of doing something evil. To me it's just an excellently written song about how we all go looking for, and trying to keep true love. The version with all the extra verses seems to get a bit darker, if I recall correctly.
Last edited by rob68 on Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
....I went to the river and I stood on the shore. I stood in the twilight of the life I had before....
Danny Harris
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Post by Danny Harris »

Dan, I am impressed by the depth and detail of your analysis of what is a very, very beautiful piece of work - it's influence on you is obvious.

BUT...do we HAVE to invent some imaginary God, so as to manufacture a "happy ending", "the good guys won"-type scenario...?

Surely ("Stop calling me Shirley!) a poet/song-writer/bard/tunesmith/balladeer/novelist/singer -can pen a top offering (ruined, I say, by multiple bashings on "soft-rock" radio) with no mind of indoctrination or superstition...?

Dan - I Just Let It Take Me...
Last edited by Danny Harris on Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Daniel H
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Post by Daniel H »

The last thing I wanted to do when I wrote about my ideas regarding Butterfly was to start a theological discussion, or worse, a debate. As I said, I was just describing my personal reactions to the song and why it may have affected me the way it did. I know Bob didn't intend to indoctrinate anyone.

I Just Let It Take Me--and that's where it took me! :lol:
Last edited by Daniel H on Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You'll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone's fading shadow...
Windboy
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Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:29 pm

Post by Windboy »

I think you analysis is wonderful. The longing to hold the moment we lose with the passage of time. The longing to make things right when we fumble the wonderful moments of our life. I loved the analysis. I wish I could have put it into my words as well. Good job. Ed
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