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"
Past the ivy-covered windows of the angel
Down Athenaeum Lane to the cathedral
Through the churchyard I wandered
Sat for a spell there and I pondered
My back to the gates
My back to the gates
My back to the gates of the garden
Fugitive fathers, sickly infants, decent mothers
Runaways and suicidal lovers
Assorted boxes of ordinary bones
Of aborted plans and sudden shattered hopes
In unlucky rows
In unhappy rows
In unlucky rows, up to the gates of the garden
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates
To the garden
Beneath the creeping shadow of the tower
The bell from St. Edmunds informs me of the hour
I turn to find you waiting there for me
In sunlight and I see the way that you breathe
All alive and leaning
Alive and leaning
Alive and leaning, leaning on the gates to the garden
Leave these ancient places to the angels
Let the saints attend to their keeping of the cathedrals
And leave the dead beneath the ground so cold
For God is in this hand that I hold
As we open up the gates
As we open up the gates
We open up the gates to the garden
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates to the garden
Down Athenaeum Lane to the cathedral
Through the churchyard I wandered
Sat for a spell there and I pondered
My back to the gates
My back to the gates
My back to the gates of the garden
Fugitive fathers, sickly infants, decent mothers
Runaways and suicidal lovers
Assorted boxes of ordinary bones
Of aborted plans and sudden shattered hopes
In unlucky rows
In unhappy rows
In unlucky rows, up to the gates of the garden
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates
To the garden
Beneath the creeping shadow of the tower
The bell from St. Edmunds informs me of the hour
I turn to find you waiting there for me
In sunlight and I see the way that you breathe
All alive and leaning
Alive and leaning
Alive and leaning, leaning on the gates to the garden
Leave these ancient places to the angels
Let the saints attend to their keeping of the cathedrals
And leave the dead beneath the ground so cold
For God is in this hand that I hold
As we open up the gates
As we open up the gates
We open up the gates to the garden
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates
Won't you meet me at the gates to the garden
Lyrics submitted by pumkinhed, edited by Mellow_Harsher, johnnykav
Gates to the Garden Lyrics as written by Nicholas Cave
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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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
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It's about a rendez-vous with a girl in the town of Bury St Edmunds, county of Suffolk, England. He crosses Athenaeum Lane street that runs between Angel Hill and Churchgate Street: "Past the ivy-covered windows of The Angel Down Athenaeum Lane to the cathedral"
and reaches Bury St Edmunds Cathedral...there he waits his date to come up and he's contemplating the graves: "Fugitive fathers, sickly infants, decent mothers Runaways and suicidal lovers Assorted boxes of ordinary bones"
at the right time( "The bell from St. Edmunds informs me of the hour") his girl appears and all his sad thoughts dissapear: "Leave these ancient places to the angels Let the saints attend to their keeping of the cathedrals And leave the dead beneath the ground so cold"
nothing else matters for him but his girlfriend, she's the only thing alive: "For God is in this hand that I hold".
It's very nice the contrast between the dead ones, the cold world, people dead and buried and the light, warm world represented by this woman.
@baudolino spot on.
God I haven't got much of an idea what this song is about 'cause i'm too stupid but i bloody well love it
I'd say this was about the Gates to a Garden (duh) ..And about the things that have happened, in this place.. And now, he is meeting his fancy-woman or whatever theres.. Not sure about the "God is in this hand that I hold", if it's refering to a girl, maybe he's comparing her to an Angel? I dunno..
I think it is about a cemetery ( Garden as a euphemism )
"Fugitive fathers, sickly infants, decent mothers Runaways and suicidal lovers Assorted boxes of ordinary bones Of aborted plans and sudden shattered hopes In unlucky rows, up to the gates of the garden In unhappy rows, up to the gates of the garden In unlucky rows, up to the gates of the garden "
Sounds pretty clear here .. either that or I am creepily depressed :P
The "garden" in this song is no more less then heaven; I think He's visiting the grave of a deceased lover and contemplates over what has happened and hopes to meet her at heavens gate. She's not reaaly dead for him.
The bell from St. Edmunds brings him back to the real & cruel world.....
Athenaeum Lane is in Bury St. Edmunds, adjacent to the Cathedral Church of St. James. From the end of the lane, there is a view of a gate.
maps.google.com/maps
I think it is a very good interpertation by budolino. Thanks!
His lover is dead and he imagines being with her as he visits her grave. Interesting twist at the end: "Let the saints attend to the keeping of the cathedrals", which suggests that he is no longer so crippled by grief. The song is about moving on from losing the ones you love, but without forgetting them.
I think @AlexanderDumbass nailed it. The garden is obviously a cemetery and he visits her there, then he sees her breathing so he knows she is alive, in the next world.
I think the "garden" reference changes in the last verse, to mean the garden of Eden, a metaphor for heaven, where he knows that they will one day meet again.
Are these the official lyrics of the song from the album, or someone's transcription? I hear him singing "in unhappy roads (not rows) up to the gates of the garden" at least once. This would presumably refer to the sad funeral processions approaching the cemetary.