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"
It's safe in the city to love in a doorway
To wrangle some screams from the dawn
And isn't it me, putting pain in a stranger?
Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash
Will you see that I'm scared and I'm lonely?
So I'll break up my room, and yawn and I
Run to the center of things
Where the knowing one says:
"Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing
Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing, sweet thing
If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing
'Cause hope, Boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
I'm glad that you're older than me
Makes me feel important and free
Does that make you smile, isn't that me?
I'm in your way, and I'll steal every moment
If this trade is a curse, then I'll bless you
And turn to the crossroads of Hamburg, as in
"Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing
Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing, sweet thing
If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing
'Cause hope, Boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
[Part Two: Candidate]
I'll make you a deal, like any other candidate
We'll pretend we're walking home 'cause your future's at stake
My set is amazing, it even smells like a street
There's a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friend
Someone scrawled on the wall "I smell the blood of Les Tricoteuses"
Who wrote up scandals in other bars
I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people
Spreading rumors and lies and stories they made up
Some make you sing and some make you scream
One makes you wish that you'd never been seen
But there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier mache
Making bullet-proof faces; Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay
"If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing"
So you scream out of line:
"I want you! I need you! Anyone out there? Any time?"
Tres butch little number whines "Hey dirty, I want you
When it's good, it's really good, and when it's bad I go to pieces"
If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing
Well, on the street where you live I could not hold up my head
For I put all I have in another bed
On another floor, in the back of a car
In the cellar of a church with the door ajar
Well, I guess we must be looking for a different kind
But we can't stop trying 'til we break up our minds
'Til the sun drips blood on the seedy young knights
Who press you on the ground while shaking in fright
I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We'll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands
[Part Three: Sweet Thing (Reprise)]
"If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
'Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
Is it nice in your snow storm, freezing your brain?
Do you think that your face looks the same?
Then let it be, it's all I ever wanted
It's a street with a deal, and a taste
It's got claws, it's got me, it's got you ...
To wrangle some screams from the dawn
And isn't it me, putting pain in a stranger?
Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash
Will you see that I'm scared and I'm lonely?
So I'll break up my room, and yawn and I
Run to the center of things
Where the knowing one says:
"Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing
Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing, sweet thing
If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing
'Cause hope, Boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
I'm glad that you're older than me
Makes me feel important and free
Does that make you smile, isn't that me?
I'm in your way, and I'll steal every moment
If this trade is a curse, then I'll bless you
And turn to the crossroads of Hamburg, as in
"Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing
Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing, sweet thing
If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing
'Cause hope, Boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
[Part Two: Candidate]
I'll make you a deal, like any other candidate
We'll pretend we're walking home 'cause your future's at stake
My set is amazing, it even smells like a street
There's a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friend
Someone scrawled on the wall "I smell the blood of Les Tricoteuses"
Who wrote up scandals in other bars
I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people
Spreading rumors and lies and stories they made up
Some make you sing and some make you scream
One makes you wish that you'd never been seen
But there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier mache
Making bullet-proof faces; Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay
"If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing"
So you scream out of line:
"I want you! I need you! Anyone out there? Any time?"
Tres butch little number whines "Hey dirty, I want you
When it's good, it's really good, and when it's bad I go to pieces"
If you want it, Boys, get it here, thing
Well, on the street where you live I could not hold up my head
For I put all I have in another bed
On another floor, in the back of a car
In the cellar of a church with the door ajar
Well, I guess we must be looking for a different kind
But we can't stop trying 'til we break up our minds
'Til the sun drips blood on the seedy young knights
Who press you on the ground while shaking in fright
I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We'll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands
[Part Three: Sweet Thing (Reprise)]
"If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
'Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing"
Is it nice in your snow storm, freezing your brain?
Do you think that your face looks the same?
Then let it be, it's all I ever wanted
It's a street with a deal, and a taste
It's got claws, it's got me, it's got you ...
Lyrics submitted by saturnine, edited by DaniCaridwen, dfghhnnbvghh
Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise) Lyrics as written by David Bowie
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Odd that I can't see the lyrics for the reprise, only for the part 1... hm. There are much fewer lyrics than I thought...
The song opens with a tired repetition of the chorus from part 1, without any hope or feeling in it at all. The characters from Sweet Thing and Candidate are disillusioned, seeing the world for what it is without the deception of new love to guide them. "Snow storm" could be a drug reference, as was suggested, but I don't know anything about that... I think the male narrator from the previous two songs is speaking here to his gilrfriend/prostitute, who betrayed him during Candidate (my interpretations of those songs can be found on the pages for those songs), and he asks bitingly if it is "nice" in her "snow storm"- either referring to cold behavior/treatment, or maybe she's taken up drugs and he is scornful. The line "Do you think that your face looks the same?" could be that she is nonchalant about what she's done, or she tried to lie to him about it, but he can see right through her by looking at her face. He doesn't question or pursue her about this, showing resignation instead by saying "Then let it be..." Ultimately he decides he has all he's ever wanted, just by living on the street that has ensnared them both with its "claws." There's no real ending to this trio, unless the story continues into the next songs (which I think it does, it just tells a new story).
So in all, I think the trio of Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing Reprise is about a man/boy who falls in love with a prostitute, gets involved with politics, has the prostitute/girlfriend cheat on him, and then is resigned to betrayal and deception afterwards.
I love the way he describes cocaine as a 'snow storm' freezing his brain.
I think for this look at candidate and sweet thing. A place where there is no rules and limitless possibilities. the three tracks are people enjoying it. I can't take credit for that. This album is very well put together.