the “Moonshadow”, the singer has come to realize that life is meant to be appreciated in the here and now.Īnd that is why we find him “leaping and hopping on a Moonshadow”. He is imbued with a sense of joy not due to any type of material gain but rather the simply joys of life, such as seeing his own shadow cast by moonlight. But they are just meant to point to the general idea that via finding “the faithful light”, i.e. Or if he had to live without eyes, then likewise he would no longer have to cry. And of course these conclusion are exaggerations. Rather what the vocalist is doing is stating that he would still find a reason to relish his life even if he was devoid of these essentials. So for instance, if he lost his employability, then indeed he “won’t have to work no more”. A Sorrowful Song?ĭespite the above, this is not a song of mourning, indeed quite to the contrary. It is said that Stevens wrote this song while he was recovering from a case of tuberculosis which nearly took his life. Thus he was very much able to conceptualize a reality in which he was without essential functions. But he takes things way further by also imagining what if he had lost his “hands”, “eyes”, “legs”, “mouth” and “teeth”. That is he imagines his life devoid of some of the basics, such as a “plough” or “land”, which is basically an allusion to him being unemployed and in fact unemployable. And what this song is actually about is an unabated appreciation of life, though Cat takes an unorthodox approach in getting this point across.