Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
Who'll walk me down to church when I'm sixty years of age
When the ragged dog they gave me has been ten years in the grave
And senorita play guitar, play it just for you
My rosary has broken and my beads have all slipped through
You've hung up your great coat and you've laid down your gun
You know the war you fought in wasn't too much fun
And the future you're giving me holds nothing for a gun
I've no wish to be living sixty years on
Yes I'll sit with you and talk let your eyes relive again
I know my vintage prayers would be very much the same
And Magdelena plays the organ, plays it just for you
Your choral lamp that burns so low when you are passing through
And the future you're giving me holds nothing for a gun
I've no wish to be living sixty years on
When the ragged dog they gave me has been ten years in the grave
And senorita play guitar, play it just for you
My rosary has broken and my beads have all slipped through
You've hung up your great coat and you've laid down your gun
You know the war you fought in wasn't too much fun
And the future you're giving me holds nothing for a gun
I've no wish to be living sixty years on
Yes I'll sit with you and talk let your eyes relive again
I know my vintage prayers would be very much the same
And Magdelena plays the organ, plays it just for you
Your choral lamp that burns so low when you are passing through
And the future you're giving me holds nothing for a gun
I've no wish to be living sixty years on
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
Step
Ministry
Ministry
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Standing On The Edge Of Summer
Thursday
Thursday
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.
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.
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
While all interpretations are subjective, and unique to the reactionary; I see this song as a sort of "Rage against the dying of the Light" as viewed through the eyes of a son. Not so much as a rage, as a whimper.
The constant references to church and faith I am still working out in my mind, but to an aging man of action, what future does the encroachment of age and infirmity hold? Perhaps the Christian Ideals that he once held dear and taught to his son hold no credence in the fact of a life of a soldier.
However the rosaries and Magdalene sing to the sound of a different tenet. The (lack of oil in the) choral lamp may refer to the loss of the joy of life that unity brings. More of a recounting of the feats? The son has lost all faith. Very sad. VERY sad.
I like this song quite a bit actually and i'm a huge Elton John fan. But I don't have a clue what it means. I just couldn't tell you. great sonhg. I love it! especially live it's awesome!
@Maddy999 read kenx's interpretation then ...
Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics for the album, Elton John, which was released in the U.S in 1970, John's first U.S. release, and from which Your Song charted well (#8 on Billboard's top 100). John Lennon is quoted as saying [That is the first new thing to happen since us]. The U.S. was mired down in the Vietnam War, and there was much social unrest and protest by the young regarding the conflict, no doubt because the Korean War had abruptly ended with no clear victory for the U.S., with North Korea, a totalitarian state, resulting.
Sixty Years On definitely has an anti-war edge to it. The song has an instrumental introduction of strings playing a dissonant chord, which builds to a fevered pitch, then fades to a sound like a hive of bees, before John's piano fades in for the beginning of the lyrics.
Also of note, in British literary history, the novels 1984 and Brave New World were widely read in the States at this time (1970s). Taupin was only 20 twenty years old, and he is the voice of the protagonist of the song, perhaps the same age. If this is correct, the young man will be at the start of his 80s in 60 years' time, and also facing the dystopian society about which Huxley and Orwell sounded the alarm in the 1930s and late 40s. The protagonist is pessimistic he does not want to be alive in that future. He states that even by the time he's 60 he will be old and dependent, needing an arm to lean on as he walks to church. Sixty years is old to someone 20 years of age, and 80 certainly is.
@kenx couldn't agree more! probably the best interpretation of this wonderful song! thanks
I'm not entirely sure but it seems like the subject is reflecting on his age and being taken over by a younger generation who's ideas he can't make sense of, is afraid that he will be forgotten and neglected. I beleive that the lyrics in the line "You've hung up your great coat and you've laid down your gun" are actually "You've hung up your RED coat..." Which would make more sense if Elton was comparing the younger generation to the brittish mercenaries/soldiers, who were ordered to take foreign land ruthlessly and impose their own culture where it was not needed. Perhaps he is even getting at the fact that despide their generational differences, they're one and the same. "Yes I'll sit with you and talk let your eyes relive again/ I know my vintage prayers would be very much the same"
Just my interpretation.
@Wikisaurus you sound right somehow but the lyrics goes, "great coat" not "RED" as you have said ...<br /> <br /> although, if we interpret it that way, maybe the younger leftist generation of Britain (and the world in general) were coming of age after all, not quite believing in the commie thing of the time anymore, especially considering this song was written and performed only a few years after the Soviets occupied eastern Europe and shocked the world, and those with likeminded attitudes and a thing for the Russian version of communism even more so ...
If the narrator will be sixty years of age in sixty years' time, how old does that make him? The idea that this is the bitter prophecy of an infant's soul is strange and haunting.
read kenx's comment please! i agree with it one hundred %!
For me, Elton and Bernie are so successful because they paint visually with both the lyrics and music. One powerful example:
“Yes i’ll sit with you and talk, and let your eyes relive again.”
A foreshadowing of what will certainly be us one day - in our older years, perhaps visiting with a dear friend from our youth, and looking back on life. The concept of letting your eyes “relive again” infers sifting through memories until arriving at a place where our minds can zoom in and focus clearly on a given time earlier in life. Someday, It may be hard to do. This song frames it quite well, like none i’ve Ever heard. I often quote the lyrics to my 16 year old son, and share with him that this will be his Dad one day. But I hope to live way past 60.
This is a magnificent composition, too bad Elton didn't pursue this style.