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”
Can't remember anything at all
Flame trees line the streets
Can't remember anything at all
But I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I've been sitting in my basement patio
Aye it was hot up above
Girls walk past, their roses all in bloom
Have you ever heard about the Higgs Boson Blues?
I'm going down to Geneva, baby
Gonna teach it to you
Who cares?
Who cares what the future brings?
Black road long and I drove and drove
And came upon a crossroad
The night was hot and black
I see Robert Johnson with a 10-dollar guitar
Strapped to his back looking for a tomb
Ah, well here comes Lucifer with his canon law
And a hundred black babies running from his genocidal jaw
He got the real killer groove
Robert Johnson and the devil, man
Don't know who is gonna rip off who
Driving my car, flame trees on fire
Sitting and singing the Higgs Boson Blues
I'm tired, I'm looking for a spot to drop
All the clocks have stopped
In Memphis now in the Lorraine Motel
It's hot, it's hot - that's why they call it the Hot Spot
I take a room with a view
Hear a man preaching in a language that's completely new, yeah
And making the hot cocks in the flophouse bleed
While the cleaning ladies sob into their mops
And a bellhop hops and bops
A shot rings out to a spiritual groove
Everybody bleeding to that Higgs Boson Blues
And if I die tonight
Bury me in my favorite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
That the caliphate forced on the Jews
Ah, can you feel my heartbeat?
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Hannah Montana does the African Savannah
As the simulated rainy season begins
She curses the queue at the Zulu's
And moves on to Amazonia
And cries with the dolphins
Mau Mau ate the pygmy
The pygmy ate the monkey
The monkey has a gift
That he is sending back to you
Look, here comes the missionary
With his smallpox and flu
He's saving them, the savages
With his Higgs Boson Blues
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
Oh let the damn day break
The rainy days always make me sad
Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake
And you're the best girl I've ever had
Can't remember anything at all
Flame trees line the streets
Can't remember anything at all
But I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I've been sitting in my basement patio
Aye it was hot up above
Girls walk past, their roses all in bloom
Have you ever heard about the Higgs Boson Blues?
I'm going down to Geneva, baby
Gonna teach it to you
Who cares?
Who cares what the future brings?
Black road long and I drove and drove
And came upon a crossroad
The night was hot and black
I see Robert Johnson with a 10-dollar guitar
Strapped to his back looking for a tomb
Ah, well here comes Lucifer with his canon law
And a hundred black babies running from his genocidal jaw
He got the real killer groove
Robert Johnson and the devil, man
Don't know who is gonna rip off who
Driving my car, flame trees on fire
Sitting and singing the Higgs Boson Blues
I'm tired, I'm looking for a spot to drop
All the clocks have stopped
In Memphis now in the Lorraine Motel
It's hot, it's hot - that's why they call it the Hot Spot
I take a room with a view
Hear a man preaching in a language that's completely new, yeah
And making the hot cocks in the flophouse bleed
While the cleaning ladies sob into their mops
And a bellhop hops and bops
A shot rings out to a spiritual groove
Everybody bleeding to that Higgs Boson Blues
And if I die tonight
Bury me in my favorite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
That the caliphate forced on the Jews
Ah, can you feel my heartbeat?
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Hannah Montana does the African Savannah
As the simulated rainy season begins
She curses the queue at the Zulu's
And moves on to Amazonia
And cries with the dolphins
Mau Mau ate the pygmy
The pygmy ate the monkey
The monkey has a gift
That he is sending back to you
Look, here comes the missionary
With his smallpox and flu
He's saving them, the savages
With his Higgs Boson Blues
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
I'm driving my car down to Geneva
Oh let the damn day break
The rainy days always make me sad
Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake
And you're the best girl I've ever had
Can't remember anything at all
Lyrics submitted by smallwonderrobot, edited by DrunkFly, dickymoore
Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics as written by Warren Ellis Nicholas Cave
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Mute Song Limited
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I think it's not about the religion or the decay of our "godless" civilization. I think it's about searching for knowledge in different places at different times. It's also about media & popular culture. While there was time when people went to Memphis to aquire some experience (a place where blues musicians made music so great that it seemed they were selling their souls to the devil), but the protaginist chooses Geneva to be the place he can learn something important. The protagonist is the present-day missionnaire / a present-day blues musician (in my opinion, 'blues' is here synonymous to 'knowledge'): he will preach & "teach it to you". There is always a cost of any knowledge: either it is small pox & flu, or a bullet in Lorraine motel, or death under unknown circumstances. There is also kind of knowledge, which is useless and does no harm (a teenage icon Miley Cirus aka Hannah Montana swimming in her pool). The connection between all these pieces is that all of them represent the culture in a certain period of time and people's obsession by it (by accepting it, learning it, teaching it, etc.). Still, it's quite unstable: "I can't remember anything at all". Might be, there is just one thing that really matters and stays: the protagonist's realtionship with another human being ("you are the best girl I've ever had").
On the second thought, these checkpoints on the protagonist's memory lane might be just alternative Universes (whose existence might be proven in Geneva some day) :)
I loved your views on it! Especially second thoughts about alternate universes. What do you think about the Mau Mau and Pygmy thing, I mean how does it fit in?
A really well thought interpretation! Thanks for this. I'm still at the "impression only" phase with this song. It has a delirious feeling to it. It also gives me the impression that it is ahead of it's time, anticipating a future where we might make quantum leaps in discovery of the natural world that shake human cosmological views in time.
@Ajnochka The CERN large hadron collider (where the Higgs Boson particle was first found) is just outside Geneva, just across the border into France. I agree with your interpretation, and believe the reason Geneva was mentioned is due to the collider.