Pretty Dirty

woah cant believe in over 2 years no-ones done this song anyway

to me this song is quite a hard one because of keiths lyrical style its all cryptic but to me it sounds like something to do with a man on the run who hides in a church and he becomes friends with a nun? "baby he'll outrun them all." maybe he lied to her about what he did and she thinks the murders are someone else

"Now the sky is falling. And you're just repeating every word I say. You are not listening close enough. It's a catastrophe."- probably one of my favourite lines i think the people at the church find out and betray him and call the cops, and he admits he is a killer and he kills them in the rain

thats probably wrong but thats the image i get

i like that idea mclars. i dont know how right it is, but i dont really think that matters. i get the feeling that most of keiths lyrics are written to be taken many ways. im sure some songs have definate meanings, but it seems most are written to almost make them your own. i dunno. i like to look at em a little bit more metaphorically most of the time but i could be complicating them lol. my feelings on this songs meanings are kind tied around the line: "now the sky is falling, and your just repeating every thing i say" like hes been trying to warn someone of something, and now that its all going to shit, and then they start listening. "i drew a chalk outline around your city, i hushed the sobs in your halls, but we both know its a killer, baby hell outrun em all" almost like he saw that something, a relationship, an idea, whatever, wasnt gonna work from the start. before it was apparent to everyone else. and even though he didnt think it was gonna work, he still comforted the one who was going through with the doomed idea anyways. then it was more obvious it wasnt gonna work, but he still didnt wanna listen, he thought he could "outrun" all the consequences. when i think of this song in that sense, alot of the other lyrics kinda fall into line and make a lil more sense. but like i said, i could be complicating it all lol

lyric correction: after he says, "dance straight through the psalm," he then says, "i was right all along"

you can read etids lyrics like a godamn story.

I got the feeling that most of this cd is about the dying music scene and i believe this song is no different. The first half seems to be talking about the last few musicians playing music for thelove of it, not for the fame or money, and how they are grieving the new music that has come about. The second half sounds like Keith's point of view of it all. "I'm dead in the water. Don't come for me. I was once alive in the deserts eyes on the day it wed the sea." The desert being the scene before it got big, the sea being mainstream. He was there and alive before it got big. "There is so much shame in how little we've gained for so long." You could almost say we've regressed in our music. "Now the sky is falling. And you're just repeating every word I say. You are not listening close enough. It's a catastrophe. You have not been concentrating." Seeing as etid is a big band people are bound to copy them in order to reach the same level of success. But all there doing is repeating the same thing thats been said, but with out the heart and meaning, they've missed out on the most important part. "But we all know that it's killer, baby I will outrun them all." Keith knows it's all shit and he's not going to sit around in it.

i've listened to this song 89 times today according to my itunes, and i have the cd, but i'm almost certain the lyric isn't "my baby better not get high" and is closer to "my baby better caress"? it doesn't amke much sense, but i know it rhymes with the next confess, as you can hear the hiss from the s. seems anal i know, but i'm just obsessed with buckleys lyrics.

he says "my baby better get high cause ive got something i need to confess" thats why your hearing and S sound

My general understanding is that every good poem or short story has an ambigious ending and the reason they are so good is because you can relate to them so easily, with that being said, I wish he would say everyone of these songs meant one thing and we are either right or wrong about them

I did get a different picture about this, I think he switches the narrator from himself viewing america, america viewing god, and what god thinks viewing america; reguardless of what Keith believes in.

Line 1: The great American mischief has muted our hearts and our rhythms are met with the inharmonious grunts of electric guitars. - Maybe underground or outcast music such as theirs countering popular american beleifs.

Line 2: Its all but too much, Nobody beleives the obscene are reprieved. - It all comes back to bite you in the ass

Alot of jumble i dont understand or at least cant comment on

"I've been begging you for less mercy than this" - This is tricky to me but I beleive that it means we might not even be content with things that we should be. We take things for granted. Great line though.

Another tricky "Cast aside our clothes like funeral roses and dance straight through the psalm" - Blindly following an interpretion of a religion, resulting in us being brain dead or unable to think for ourselves, we might as well be dead.

Something i cant interpret but love, "I'm dead in the water, dont come for me, I was once alive in the deserts' eyes on the day it wed the sea" But i do think this has something to do with prehistoric times or ancient times because the song keeps referncing pre recorded history depending on what religion you look at.

"Drew a chalk outline around your city" -I'm gonna take this at face value, I'm gonna fuck a sinful city up, Like Sodom and Gamorrah in the book of Genesis

All of this "There is so much shame in how little we've gained for so long. Now the sky is falling. And you're just repeating every word I say. You are not listening close enough. It's a catastrophe. You have not been concentrating. Pay attention there will be an exam. Build an ark. Come bring us back to the ruin." - To me it seems like Keith thinks god is fedup with America and its pathetic that we havent progressed as much as should have or has even been predicted, I dont know if he's speaking technologically or socially, or culturely with the world. It also seems that we have apparently been givin signs that the apacolpyse is coming "revalations" even though i'm not sure if any of those signs are quoted here. But we are not taking heed to the warning. The exam though is, thats do you pass and go to heaven or are you going to hell. The next two lines I take at face value. "taped off the sky around your city" face value again.

The last two are of course what makes this such an unpredictable and ambigious song, which goes hand and hand with how great it is, he never does finish what happens to "dusted for prints on the chapel wall", somewhat implying god, but"we all know that its killer" could mean we all know what we did to let us end up this way, if indeed the apocalypse is coming reguardless of religion or not, we know we crossed lines of morality more than we should have. And then he states it is him.

This may be a super wack interpretation, and you all may think i'm a crock of shit, but I love this song and I've looked at this site for a while and no body ever had a good explanation, so if anyone can branch of this or even give a better explanation than this please do, even though there could be many explantions to this song, it does seem to me like alot of these peices fit together well. And if it is indeed that him throwing lines together to make something sound cool, then i just wasted a shit ton of time