It is a conincidence that I have been listening to and playing "Amelia" for 25 years and the same question crossed my mind yesterday: What was the false alarm?
My own take is that the reference is to an equipment failure in Ameila's plane which she interpreted as a false alarm leading to her ultimate destruction and that Joni's own "false alarms" in matters of love turned out to be true alarms - ignored, in her case, leading to her own emotional destruction. Ryan Bruce Kimerer wrote: << OK. After many years and hundreds of listens, what are the 'false alarms' in Amelia? In the Icarus verse I understand the false alarm to be a love affair that didn't work out. But what about in the other verses? They all end in 'it was just a false alarm.' What does IT refer to? There isn't an obvious subject for the pronoun. This has been driving me a little crazy for almost 30 years now. >>
