A song by eddie from ohio, off their 1993 album actually not, Sahara is about Chris McCandless and how reality never quite matches a dream. Chris McCandless' life was documented in John Krakauer's nonfiction book Into the Wild, which describes Chris' departure from home and attempt to rough it in the Alaskan wilderness. He figured he'd be self-sufficient, but he starved to death. The tragedy of someone so young and so idealistic dying--and in such a slow, agonizing way, realizing he was starving to death, and unable to leave--works its way into the sad harmonies in the chorus and the wistful, far-off echo of the higher guitar strings.
Chris was no philosopher,
he was an ordinary man,
24 and running out of room,
A
rifle and a
pack
and a sack of
rice on his back.
Guided by
Tolstoy and
the moon,
into the
Yukon he would go,
in search of a
higher truth.
Christopher would make a break with this world,
but he never escaped his youth.
chorus
Sahara will never be the south of France--Obvious, with the rising sun.
If I had no home, I'd build one in the sand;
If I didn't I have a love, I'd find me one.
If I didn't I have a love, I'd find me one.
I'd find me one.
Four months alone in the ice and snow,
is a long way from
Annandale.
Locals and trappers and
eskimos
knew better than to trust that trail.
At one with the earth he loved so well,
a retreat from the civilized,
hunger and emptiness took their toll:
Chris McCandless passed us by.
chorus twice