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"
You've got to be the one
Smile of porcelin
Bullet holes in your tongue
Plexiglass bones
Dough of angels breath
The eyes of a mannequin
Put on a hell of a show
Solid gold
Fresh young face
King of a lovely place
Silicone life
Wash your face
Tryin' to make it better
And we've heard this song before
And the needle skips again
Playin' dominoes with tombstones
Found a graveyard in your drawer
Go and get yourself buried
'Cause your dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead
You're skin melts in wax
Woven silk eyelids
The arms of a somnambulist
You got your moneys worth
Soul hangs in the closet
Papier mache heart
Put on a hell of a show
Solid gold
Your hate crime
Wasn't loving me
Silicone life
Wash your face
Tryin' to make it better
And we'll never make it better
And we'll never make it better
Smile of porcelin
Bullet holes in your tongue
Plexiglass bones
Dough of angels breath
The eyes of a mannequin
Put on a hell of a show
Solid gold
Fresh young face
King of a lovely place
Silicone life
Wash your face
Tryin' to make it better
And we've heard this song before
And the needle skips again
Playin' dominoes with tombstones
Found a graveyard in your drawer
Go and get yourself buried
'Cause your dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead
You're skin melts in wax
Woven silk eyelids
The arms of a somnambulist
You got your moneys worth
Soul hangs in the closet
Papier mache heart
Put on a hell of a show
Solid gold
Your hate crime
Wasn't loving me
Silicone life
Wash your face
Tryin' to make it better
And we'll never make it better
And we'll never make it better
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Dreamwalker
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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.
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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."
Gentle Hour
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Yo La Tengo
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,
this song is a direct slap in the face for all the Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne's, Ashlee Simpsons who were promised a million magazine covers and a million more hearts. Fames a devilish thing. Beautiful song.
Song is about Carl Tanzer. A guy who tried to save a woman he was obsessed with from death. When she died he stole her corpse and tried to preserve it using glass eyes and some sort of embalming material. By the end the body looked a lot like paper mache. The song is about trying to make the corpse better and preserve her fresh young face. By the end he seems to realize that she's dead, and to move on and stop trying to preserve it before reverting back to the delusion of trying to 'Keep her alive'.
Bitter, unrequited love
I always thought this song was Patton feeling sorry for, if not sympathising with a prostitute. At first glance I thought it was a type of love song but look closer at the lyrics.
What leads me to believe this whole protitute meaning are that the lyrics "Smile of porcelin" & "The eyes of a mannequin" refer to the girl faking it, as with "Put on a hell of a show". I always thought that "Bullet holes in your tounge" was referring to STDs as well.
What leads me to believe it the most though are the lines "Your hate crime Wasn't loving me", meaning that what a woman might do out of sheer desperation, neglect or poor self image is not as demonic as some people make it out to be, that there is a reason women get(/are forced) into this and that it's not just their fault for being slutty.
Very similar in my view to Yes by The Manic Street Preachers:
"Theres no lust in this coma even for a fifty Solitude, solitude, the 11th commandment The only certain thing that is left about me Theres no part of my body that has not been used"
No?
I've read this album is a concept album about a serial killer, so this song is probably like a ballad to one of the first victims.
yeah, sounds like maybe he's trying to make her look pretty before killing her? It's not very clear. The music kinda reminds me of bungle's Retrovertigo.
The albums is meant to show different aspects of the American nightmare.
Well, we can assume the protagonist in this concept album has a love interest (Point and Click). Maybe this is him leaving her, or killing her, you decide, and he later reflects on this in Cul de Sac. ("I wish you were here...")
To me, it seems like he loved this girl & she chose fame over him.