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.
Up those stone steps I climb
Hail this joyful day's return
Into its great shadowed vault I go
Hail the Pentecostal morn
The reading is from Luke 24
Where Christ returns to his loved ones
I look at the stone apostles
Think that it's alright for some
And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe
A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips
No God up in the sky
And no devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, baby
Of bringing me to my knees
Outside I sit on the stone steps
With nothing much to do
Forlorn and exhausted, baby
By the absence of you
Hail this joyful day's return
Into its great shadowed vault I go
Hail the Pentecostal morn
The reading is from Luke 24
Where Christ returns to his loved ones
I look at the stone apostles
Think that it's alright for some
And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe
A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips
No God up in the sky
And no devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, baby
Of bringing me to my knees
Outside I sit on the stone steps
With nothing much to do
Forlorn and exhausted, baby
By the absence of you
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Standing On The Edge Of Summer
Thursday
Thursday
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
It's a beautiful, fragile song; and although he's exhausted, the organ still rises and rises above the situation, elevating the singer as well. At least, that's what I feel ...
Here's what Nick has to say about it (in an interview with Jim Pascoe):
" ... But it's supposed to be where Christ, after the Resurrection, returns to his friends and shows himself to his disciples. I guess I was making a point in that song that some people have it lucky that people do return to them, and in my situation, it didn't seem like that was happening; in my ... in the relationship [PJ Harvey] that I'm talking about within that song it doesn't seem like that was going to happen."
The third verse is very likely a reference to The Hunchback of Notre Dame; The classic 1939 film version with Charles Laughton ends with Quasimodo leaning on one of Notre Dame's stone gargoyle statues, bitterly saying "Why was I not made of stone like thee?" while seeing the beautiful Esmeralda go off with somebody else.
The Brompton Oratory is a smallish Catholic church in central London. He goes in when it's Easter. He's saying it's the day when Jesus came back long ago, but baby isn't coming back, even though he can still smell her on his fingers. And the shift from the resurrection to the stone statues of the disciples is just masterful. A real tear-jerker.
@futatorius <br /> It reads 'pentecostal', so while Luke 24 is about Easter, that text might as well be read at a Pentecost mass. I think that the meaning of Pentecost may be closer to the meaning of the Song than that of Easter. I'm not an expert in this religious field. Any other opinions?
One of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' most beautiful & painful songs. The Brompton church is in London, he stops in hoping for some relief. He's also frustrated that he's so lonely from his recent breakup that he's turning to religious ritual. He describes an ethereal beauty in what the two shared in their relationship along with the beauty of Christ returning to his disciples (as recounted in Luke 24). Looking at the beauty in the church he wishes he could be made of stone (like the stone apostles gazing down) so that he wouldn't have to feel the pain and loneliness of the breakup. After the service he sits outside alone, exhausted by his former lover's absence.
this is my favourite nick cave and the bad seeds song. always makes me cry. its about someone who is so amazing that when their not there you cant bear it...
this is my favourite nick cave song too. In fact, one of my all-time favourites by anyone. I love it, and it makes me cry more often than any other song I can think of. It is very very beautiful.
"smallish"? It's pretty fucking big, one of the largest Catholic Churches in London.
At first listen, I had some trouble with this album. It's very sad and dark and mournful, but the stark, fragile beauty of the bare arrangements and Cave's stripped down poetry make it a very effective record. I can definitely see him wanting to kill his inner demons on this one. I think he's pretty much hopeless on this one: it's almost as if he's contemplating religion, the stone apostles, and Christ's return to his loved one, while being forced to acknowledge his loneliness and, perhaps, incapability to believe ("Think that it's alright for some")
I love this site. I hadn't really thought about the meaning of this song very deeply, and whilst checking out Nick Cave lyrics I thought I'd look at this. Cave's explanation (thanks the boatman) has made the whole song make sense. I love The Boatman's Call but I'd never thought much about this song. Now it's constantly in my head and there's something beautiful about how the quiet resignation of the lyrics compliment the fairly restrained music.
24 lines. Still perfection.