There are various innocuous explanations of the meaning of this song all over the internet, but they just don't ring true to me. It seems to me totally obvious that the song covers much of the same territory as the Velvet Underground "Waiting for the man". Comparably bowdlerised explanations of Lou Reed's Sweet Jane (a weed song if I ever heard one) multiply. Conversely I happen to believe that 8 miles High was actually about an aeroplane flight! Views?