Miner At The Dial-A-View

Album: The Sophtware Slump (2000)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is part of a concept album about encroaching technological fascism. The song is about "digital loneliness" ("I dream at night of coming home some day, somewhere so far away"), as the hero has been away from home for 15 years ("fifteen years is almost gone, and I don't recognize anyone"), and the only contact he has with home is through the "Dial-A-View." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    rachel - London, England

Comments: 8

  • Toe from NorcalI thought it was a real telescope service in the hills near Modesto. I thought Jason was spying on his old High School girlfriend and friends. He left them behind but wonders if he should come home.
  • Tom from A, Belgiuma dial-a-view is the concept of video over a dial-up (telephone) network, directly (videophone) or indirectly like a service similar to pay-per-view, but requested over the phone, and viewed on, for example, a television. the information viewed can also be anything, a movie, or in the miners case, probably, satellite images. a dial-a-view is not a device, but an old concept (idea), not used anymore due to things like internet and digital telivision.
  • Edward from Yums, Az"I found your house and saw your car but i have no idea where you are... from the Dial-a-View"

    It is Google Earth!
  • Edward from Yums, AzThe "Dial-a-View" is some kind of a "pay per view" device that the protagonist frequents in order to get some kind of contact (a view) of his home, his former self... it is empty, cheap escapism but his only refuge from the torments of his present state. Like the coal miner who drinks his wages at the Company bar, he is trapped plunking his wages into a machine like a boy filling an arcade game with quarters... we get an idea that it isn't a sure thing... that it is hit or miss ... the female voiceover says "...good luck!"

    great fricking song.
  • Kelly from Fort Lauderdale, Fli live in san francisco but can see my parents house in fort lauderdale through the long-latd map internet site. technology and the soul have absolutely no place together ("so far away" is where the soul's home is and it is eons away from this cold physical plane). Technology is neat but it is inversely proportional to your true growth potential- alienated is right, Rachel.
  • Mike from Bedford, EnglandI think the Dial-A-view is some kind of arial spying system. maybe syping is not the right word - think of a live version of multimap. As the song says you select you longtitude and the latitude and then zoom in to look at the person you want. i think the guy is lonely and uses the dial-a-view to look up these people he has grown apart from. Perhaps?
  • Rachel from London, Englandthe way i understand it (literally), the hero is in a sort of "work farm" which provides a kind of telescope that you can use to view your family, friends etc.
    however, i think the dial-a-view is a metaphor for the way the hero feels i.e. alienated, and for how he views the world like a "ghost", without establishing any real contact with "family" and "friends"
  • Fabien from Rennes, Francebut what do you think the "dial-a-view" is ?
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