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"
One, two, three
Falling James in the Tahoe mud
Stick around to tell us all a tale
Well, he fell in love with a Gun Street girl
And now he's dancing in the Birmingham jail
Dancing in the Birmingham jail
He took a hundred dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe
Brought a brand new Michigan twenty-gauge
He got all liquored up on that road house corn
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette
A hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette
He bought a second-hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese
And dyed his hair in the bathroom of a Texaco
With a pawnshop radio, quarter past four
He left for Waukegan at the slamming of the door
Left for Waukegan at the slamming of the door
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
He's sitting in a sycamore in St. John's wood
Soaking day-old bread in kerosene
Well, he was blue as a robin's egg and brown as a hog
He's staying out of circulation till the dogs get tired
Out of circulation till the dogs get tired
Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone
He never get up in the morning on a Saturday
Sitting by the Erie with a bull-whipped dog
Telling everyone he saw, "they went that-a-way, boys"
Telling everyone he saw, "they went that-a-way"
Now the rain's like gravel on an old tin roof
And the Burlington Northern pulling out of the world
Now a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw
And a Gun Street girl was the cause of it all
A Gun Street girl was the cause of it all
Well, he's riding in the shadow by the St. Joe ridge
Hearing the click-clack tapping of a blind man's cane
He was pulling into Baker on a New Year's Eve
One eye on a pistol and the other on the door
One eye on a pistol and the other on the door
Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Fish Row
Smuggled in a brand new pair of alligator shoes
With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair
Well, they tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire
Tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
Banging on the table with an old tin cup
Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again
Never kiss a Gun Street girl again
I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
Falling James in the Tahoe mud
Stick around to tell us all a tale
Well, he fell in love with a Gun Street girl
And now he's dancing in the Birmingham jail
Dancing in the Birmingham jail
He took a hundred dollars off a slaughterhouse Joe
Brought a brand new Michigan twenty-gauge
He got all liquored up on that road house corn
Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette
A hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette
He bought a second-hand Nova from a Cuban Chinese
And dyed his hair in the bathroom of a Texaco
With a pawnshop radio, quarter past four
He left for Waukegan at the slamming of the door
Left for Waukegan at the slamming of the door
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
He's sitting in a sycamore in St. John's wood
Soaking day-old bread in kerosene
Well, he was blue as a robin's egg and brown as a hog
He's staying out of circulation till the dogs get tired
Out of circulation till the dogs get tired
Shadow fixed the toilet with an old trombone
He never get up in the morning on a Saturday
Sitting by the Erie with a bull-whipped dog
Telling everyone he saw, "they went that-a-way, boys"
Telling everyone he saw, "they went that-a-way"
Now the rain's like gravel on an old tin roof
And the Burlington Northern pulling out of the world
Now a head full of bourbon and a dream in the straw
And a Gun Street girl was the cause of it all
A Gun Street girl was the cause of it all
Well, he's riding in the shadow by the St. Joe ridge
Hearing the click-clack tapping of a blind man's cane
He was pulling into Baker on a New Year's Eve
One eye on a pistol and the other on the door
One eye on a pistol and the other on the door
Miss Charlotte took her satchel down to King Fish Row
Smuggled in a brand new pair of alligator shoes
With her fireman's raincoat and her long yellow hair
Well, they tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire
Tied her to a tree with a skinny millionaire
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
Banging on the table with an old tin cup
Sing I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again
Never kiss a Gun Street girl again
I'll never kiss a Gun Street girl again
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
I said John, John, he's long gone
Gone to Indiana, ain't never coming home
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
Gun Street Girl Lyrics as written by Thomas A. Waits
Lyrics © JALMA MUSIC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
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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,
No Surprises
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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.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
First stanza: "I'm going to tell you a story about a man who fell in love with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Now he's in jail." Second stanza: "He stole some money, bought a gun, got drunk on grain alcohol, blew a hole in the hood of a yellow Corvette." Third stanza: "Bought a cheap little car got out of town as fast as he could, and disguised himself on the run." Fourth stanza: Chorus. Fifth stanza: "Hiding in the woods (or perhaps actually hiding in a tree in the woods) eating food that isn't the best and drowning it in strong booze. A shame for someone so young to have seen so much tragedy (or, perhaps he meant blue=sad and brown=skin color). He's hiding until they stop looking." Sixth stanza: "Lived a comfortable life in hiding for a while..." Seventh stanza: "But the blues caught up with him and his comfortable, hidden life turned maddening." Eight stanza: "Still feeling safely hidden away, he got busted--eyes darting from the cop to the door." Ninth stanza: "The Gun Street Girl ended up married to a rich man. (perhaps she didn't really want to. Perhaps she was the rich guiy's fiance` when the protagonist got involved with her...)"
My interpretation.
I found some Tom Waits quotes on the net about this song:<br /> <br /> "Gun Street Girl is about a guy who's having trouble with the law and he traces all of these events back to this girl he met on Gun Street right there on Center Market right in Little Italy there."<br /> <br /> "I tried to make it a tale in a tale, y'know? Where is the end of this tale? Y'know? There's: "Telling everyone they saw the went thataway". There's this girl tied to a tree with a skinny millionaire and a guy coming into Baker with a pistol and a... So I just tried to throw it all in there and make it like eh... "What the hell's going on around here?!" Y'know? It's like when you wake up in the middle of the night and you try to remember something that you don't, you remember just pieces of things? Y'know?"<br /> <br /> Soakin' day old bread in kerosene: WW-II survival countertracking technique, to escape a tracker dog trailing ones scent, by carrying bread or tobacco soaked in petrol, gasoline or kerosene.<br /> <br /> Thanks to whoever posted these, at this link:<br /> tomwaitslibrary.com/lyrics/raindogs/gunstreetgirl.html
An old desperado once told me that if I was ever stuck for a drink to get a chunk of stale bread and pour kerosene thru the bread. The bread acts as a filter: retaining the stuff you don't want and furnishing you with the stuff you very much want. I've always thought that it was this that Waits was referring to. Certainly you won't throw a bloodhound off your trail with kerosene, wish you could , but you can't.
To me it sounds like the melody (and rhythm) was taken from Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons, a very Waits-esque song.
This is especially audible during this song's refrain and during similar sounding lines (ex.: both song's first line, "Some people say a man is made outta mud"/"Falling James in the Tahoe mud," or, "I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine"/"He never get up in the morning on a Saturday").
Still, Waits makes the tune his own through his lyrics, which are great as usual, and the stripped down backwoods instrumentation on the banjo is different and works incredibly well.
absolutely one of my favourites, and what a story!
Waukegan. Fucking great.
In the fifth stanza of Gun Street Girl, Hraesvelg interpretation "eating food that isn't the best and drowning it in strong booze" is their interpretation of "soaking day old bread in kerosene" - soaking bread in kerosene is a way to trow off tracking dogs.
Something I like about this song is the fact that it doesn't need to be sung. If you just say the words, the rhythm just happens. It's as if the rhythm of the words was as important as the meaning.
Sittin in a sycamore in Saint John's wood soaking day old bread in kerosene... staying out of circulation till the dogs get tired....