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"
This is Tiger the Lion
Gimme the Knuckles of Frisco
If there's danger in the language,
Gentlemen,
I suggest no further use of
The two-way radio.
'John Cage had come to feel
That art in our time
Was far less important
Than our daily lives,
To which so many'd become
More or less inclined.
The purpose of it's not unique.
Not to build masterpieces
For a delectative elite
But simply to wake to your life.'
You'll be serving the song
When you find out you won't change
Serving the song
Walking the range.
'John Cage had come to feel
Art in our time
Was much less important
Than our daily life
If there's a perpetual plan
For discovery days
Where everyone can take part
In what he called
Purposeless play
And there's a sign of life in this play
Not to get order from chaos
Tell you how to create
But simply to wake to your life.'
You'll be serving the song
When we find out you won't change
Serving the song
Bombing the range
This is Tiger the Lion
Get me Into the Pillows
If you're painted by radar, gentlemen,
There'll be no further use of
The two-way radio
Gimme the Knuckles of Frisco
If there's danger in the language,
Gentlemen,
I suggest no further use of
The two-way radio.
'John Cage had come to feel
That art in our time
Was far less important
Than our daily lives,
To which so many'd become
More or less inclined.
The purpose of it's not unique.
Not to build masterpieces
For a delectative elite
But simply to wake to your life.'
You'll be serving the song
When you find out you won't change
Serving the song
Walking the range.
'John Cage had come to feel
Art in our time
Was much less important
Than our daily life
If there's a perpetual plan
For discovery days
Where everyone can take part
In what he called
Purposeless play
And there's a sign of life in this play
Not to get order from chaos
Tell you how to create
But simply to wake to your life.'
You'll be serving the song
When we find out you won't change
Serving the song
Bombing the range
This is Tiger the Lion
Get me Into the Pillows
If you're painted by radar, gentlemen,
There'll be no further use of
The two-way radio
Lyrics submitted by black_cow_of_death
Tiger the Lion Lyrics as written by Johnny Fay Gordon Downie
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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John Cage was an experimental music composer who attempted to put Zen Buddhist beleifs into practice through the music he composed. John Cage is actualy quoted as describing his music as "purposeless play" which is where Downie gets this lyric. Cage is also quoted as saying that the purpose of his music is "not an attempt to bring order out of chaos" which Downie also touches on. Cage also stated that his music is meant to "simply to wake up to the very life we are living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind mind and desires out of the way and lets it act of its own accord.".
This last point is what I think Gord is really trying to get at, the fact that Cage didn't make music to create masterpices, but simply to get people to realize how beautiful the world around them is when we actualy stop to apreciate it.
However, I think downie tries to go deeper with this by using the military analogy. In the first chours, Downie is talking about "serving the song" (which I assume is refering to buying in to what the theory that Cage had about the beauty of life if we let it happen on it's own) and follows this by saying "walking the range". In the second chorus however, Downie changes "walking the range" to "bombing the range". I think what Downie is trying to get at here is that while it can sometimes be good to "serve the song", as he puts it, (meaning to let the mind act of it's own accord) at other times, leting our mind act of its own accord and not questioning where it might lead us can be dangerous. But thats just one man's opinion.
I love when people leave comments that provide background info on the lyrical content like this--thank you from one music nerd to another ;)