In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Echoes of the Broadway Everglades
With her mythical Madonnas still walking in their shades
Lenny Bruce, declares a truce and plays his other hand
Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin', head buried in the sand
Sirens on the rooftops wailing, but there's no ship sailing
Groucho, with his movies trailing, stands alone with his punchline failing
Ku Klux Klan serve hot soul food
And the band plays 'In the Mood'
The cheerleader waves her cyanide wand
There's a smell of peach blossom and bitter almond
Caryl Chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade
He know in a scent uou can bottle all you made
There's Howard Hughes in blue suede shoes
Smiling at the majorettes, smoking Winston cigarettes
And as the song and dance begins
The children play at home
With needles, needles and pins
With her mythical Madonnas still walking in their shades
Lenny Bruce, declares a truce and plays his other hand
Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin', head buried in the sand
Sirens on the rooftops wailing, but there's no ship sailing
Groucho, with his movies trailing, stands alone with his punchline failing
Ku Klux Klan serve hot soul food
And the band plays 'In the Mood'
The cheerleader waves her cyanide wand
There's a smell of peach blossom and bitter almond
Caryl Chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade
He know in a scent uou can bottle all you made
There's Howard Hughes in blue suede shoes
Smiling at the majorettes, smoking Winston cigarettes
And as the song and dance begins
The children play at home
With needles, needles and pins
Lyrics submitted by Demau Senae
Broadway Melody of 1974 Lyrics as written by Phillip David Charles Collins Anthony George Banks
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
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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"
Mental Istid
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Good this... I dunno how historically accurate it is but its pretty much a bit of scene setting for the lamb to bring up some of the sights sounds and people that would have applied to new york at the time. its sinister undertone is evident thru'out leading you to half expect the unearthly happenins which follow it in the story
Gabriel is making social comment on the extent and influence of media, ironic considering the song appears early on one of the most adventurous and seminal multimedia explorations at that time. Lenny Bruce, a highly contrivetial comic and social commentatory, banned for his radical observations, is having time off. Marchal Mcluchan, one of the greatest american accademics of media, very heavy stuff, is compared to light weight, popular froth and is shown to be uncharacteristicly disinterested, head buiried etc. Sirens called mariners to their death, some believe they are the source of the mermaid legend, but theres no ships sailing.The cheerleaders wands smell like cyinide, the gas used to execute in the gas chambers, as was Caryl Chessman, a convicted kidnapper, although huge media uproar surronded his execution and doubt as to his guild. He was the last person executed under the "Little Lindbergh" law, brought in following the kidnapping of the baby Lindbergh, where bodily harm was caused to the kidnap victim. Them we have Howard Hughes, a man torn between desparate seclusion and media spotlight, a man whose legacy and interest in his eccentric life style still are a cause of media interest, not least a Hollywood blockbuster. All these character have attracted media and public interest and Gabriel draws them together into a fantacy parade to reinforce the power of image on drawing people into certain opinions and perhaps actions. Rael, a character of multi personality , decends throught the album into a characture of social unrest and the personalities of this song set a perfect scene for how people are influuenced by external factors.
Marshall McLuhan was Canadian
@harliquin I guess that sirens are the speakers that yale ads in your ear since early morning attracting a buyer, who is a sailor on the ship of his soul. Therefore, according to Joyce and therefore Mcluhan if all ad is pornographic, attracting with instincts, then in can steal your soul and lure it to the rocks of consumerism.
"Sirens on the rooftops wailing, but there's no ship sailing." Some small ports literally sound sirens from rooftops to alert tourists that the ocean liners are about to leave. (So it's not necessarily the sea legend sirens.) The reference to serial robber/ rapist/ kidnapper Caryl Chessman has possible double meanings as well. It says, "Caryl Chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade, he knows in a scent,You can bottle all you made." Chessman was executed in California by gas 11 years after being convicted by testimony from eyewitness victims, but he wrote four books and sold the movie rights, telling the public he was framed. (Many Hollywood "intellectuals" actually believed it.) So the line "he knows, in a scent" could actually be "he knows, innocent, you can bottle all you made." (He certainly sold the public a lot of bottles of his supposed innocence, which they drank like booze, despite multiple victims fingering him.) I'm not sure the band meant either of these double meanings, but I'd like to think they did, because this album is very rich in symbols and metaphors.
I wonder what the KKK reference is all about. Only Peter Gabriel knows!