The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
There is a woman in Somalia
Scraping for pearls on the roadside
There's a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive
This is how she's dying
She's dying to survive
Don't know what she's made of
I would like to be that brave
She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives a life she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand new shoes
Hurts like brand new shoes
There is a woman in Somalia
The sun gives her no mercy
The same sky we lay under
Burns her to the bone
Long as afternoon shadows
It's gonna take her to get home
Each grain carefully wrapped up
Pearls for her little girl
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives in a world she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand new shoes
Hurts like brand new shoes
Scraping for pearls on the roadside
There's a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive
This is how she's dying
She's dying to survive
Don't know what she's made of
I would like to be that brave
She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives a life she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand new shoes
Hurts like brand new shoes
There is a woman in Somalia
The sun gives her no mercy
The same sky we lay under
Burns her to the bone
Long as afternoon shadows
It's gonna take her to get home
Each grain carefully wrapped up
Pearls for her little girl
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives in a world she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand new shoes
Hurts like brand new shoes
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Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
Head > Heels
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
I agree. I love her heartfelt cry, 'hallelujah', you can really hear her soul in it. the agony of a mother trying to keep heart in the face of famine is so powerfully portrayed.
This is one of the most moving songs i have ever heard. It is so beautifully crafted and the lyrics and harmony are astounding. The comparison to heartache in poverty to painful soles is poignant in that the woman in somalia probably never had new shoes and that despite that we can understand her pain. And the aspect of how she surrenders her life to the heavens above all her thoughts for her little girl. It is a song about the harshness of life and how we cannot choose our fate and family but have to each of us scrape for pearls in our lifetime to furhter our lives or in this case furhter our children's lives. She collects them for her girl notice not for her so you can interpret pearls as pearls of wisdom, money, food something that will help her child survive depite she is dying to survive....
@Tethys Yes, and about having to live a life you don\'t get to choose, the painful soles might also be a way of Sade saying that that\'s all some people will never know, they might never know the pain of not being able to find your next meal for you and your child.
I think pearls represents food for her daughter, it's probably shaped like pearls. The reason it is called pearls because food is scarce which makes the food precious and invaluable.
"hurts like brand new shoes" is just an ingenious metaphor. It means that the singer (or any of us in the Western world) can't really understand the pain someone in that situation goes through, and we can only try to judge it by our standards.
i dont know what it is but this song just means so much to me...i get all deep and into it when i hear it
esta es una de la canciones mas bellas que he escuchado. Y es la unica cancion que cada vez que la escucho me pone los pelos de punta , me paraliza, me estremece. Otro nivel de cancion. Just beautiful...
I reckon that's THE song every woman should hear at least once in her lifetime. Cause it makes us think about all ups and downs of womanhood. It's a big and tricky task to be a woman, lover, mother and so on, isn't it? That's a sad and moving song about scraping pearls for little daughter(maybe food or grains or wisdom shaped as pearls..) but it still gives me a courage to be a woman. It tells me: live your life the way you like and choose cause you're a woman..Cos you're strong..Touching
I just saw Sade perform @ Sydney Entertainment Centre last weekend! This song WAS UNBELIEVEABLE LIVE!!!! She is a force! When she sounds Halelujah- it still brings goosebumps up & down my body....exsquisite!
I think the pearls relate to pearls of wisdom?? Everything she does is driven by the innate behaviour of a mother for her child....
Hurts like brand new shoes relates to it hurting every step of the way.... I believe this is the labour of love....
I like Sade, but this is just awful poverty industry propaganda. Look into the live aid money. Sir bob geldof? laughable.