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.
Oh, it's carnival night
And they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels
Painting little devils on the roof
Oh the furnace wind
Is a flickering of wings about your face
In a cloud of incense
Yea, it smells like Heaven in this place
I can't eat, can't sleep
Still I hunger for you when you look at me
That face, those eyes
All the sinful pleasures deep inside
Tell me how, you know now, the ways and means of getting in
Underneath my skin,
Oh you were always my original sin
And tell me why, I shudder inside, every time we begin
This dangerous game
Oh you were always my original sin
A dream will fly
The moment that you open up your eyes
A dream is just a riddle
Ghosts from every corner of your life
Up in the balcony
All the Romeo's are bleeding for your hand
Blowing theater kisses
Reciting lines they don't understand
And they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels
Painting little devils on the roof
Oh the furnace wind
Is a flickering of wings about your face
In a cloud of incense
Yea, it smells like Heaven in this place
I can't eat, can't sleep
Still I hunger for you when you look at me
That face, those eyes
All the sinful pleasures deep inside
Tell me how, you know now, the ways and means of getting in
Underneath my skin,
Oh you were always my original sin
And tell me why, I shudder inside, every time we begin
This dangerous game
Oh you were always my original sin
A dream will fly
The moment that you open up your eyes
A dream is just a riddle
Ghosts from every corner of your life
Up in the balcony
All the Romeo's are bleeding for your hand
Blowing theater kisses
Reciting lines they don't understand
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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.
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
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"
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
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,
I think that the secret to understanding the imagery in this song is the first line: "Oh its carnival night." I'm thinking that it is some sort of celebration that a guy is attending.
"Tell me how, you know now, the ways and means of getting in Underneath my skin, Oh you were always my original sin And tell me why, I shudder inside, every time we begin This dangerous game Oh you were always my original sin "
Now the guy in this song is talking about a person who he has wanted for a long, long time (Original Sin). Now no matter what, this girl always gets back into his thoughts somehow. However for some reason he can't get her. Perhaps the best clue is that something is wrong with them being together (all the stuff about sinful pleasure.) Or maybe he's just shy, only Bernie Taupin knows.
"Up in the balcony All the Romeo's are bleeding for your hand Blowing theater kisses Reciting lines they don't understand"
Thats one of my favorite verses in all of rock and roll. To me that verse means that there are a lot of guys who want this girl and are trying hard to get her. They are being all romantic and saying things that they really don't comprehend (poetry maybe). Or in a very general sense, a bunch of assholes are trying to pick her up with their best lines.
@Good OL MC I had a freind dedicate this song to me a week or so ago she goes this is your song.I dint knwo if she was taking the piss out of me at first but she and others seen my pain and after for years i met this guy in northern ireland and it killed me it seemed he was so right then he left he knew when we looked on the internet at first that how hard it woudl be to immigrate there and he did say your never gonna get here.we get in fights on this chat program on and off we been freinds and few months ago he said your soo far away.And hes said we have to be friends we just friends but yet once he said if we got together he woudl be hard on me like i woudl drive him a little edgy im guessing.HE has said we proabably woudl be married but we always hurt each otehr back and forth sure i had few crushes on the net on teh same program but no one compares to my friendship with him our closeness we had and us meeting together.He cant understand that.HEs told me in the past how pretty much he is just friends with some etc like trying ot prove to me but yet we just friends and gets angry and says he will do me a favoer and blocked me.He said juet the past week we coudl be great friends all in fornt of a room of chatters i apologized and i siad we both hurt each other and go back adn forth.I wish god had a miracle for if it was love he nver shows on and off a few people well one thinks he loves me hes pretty good friends with him.BUt no one can compare i hate it he gets me soo angry but i always fall into im sorry and kills me all over again.we look too opposite to be together and stuff but i feel i fell in love with a friend first it wastn his looks it was him.I know ies been four years and I do try.I want to finda guy just like that that can show me his heart and not hide it though.bear his sould to me there just isnt any real ones out there.so when they recite their poems lits liek all the flirty guys saying stuff to me but no one can compare to what i cant get out of my heart soo many times i tried .He mad a promise we woudl never lose our friendship he broke it.
this song is clearly about elton john's marriage to his ex wife. he implies the relationship as an original sin because even though he loved his wife very much, he wasn't being true to himself and his attractions.
Isnt this song really cool Any comments??
Yeah I like this song, but i dont get it. I just like the music and the tune. I guess i would like the song if i knew what it meant. Anyone got any ideas?
This song is interesting in the respect that it has contrasting images of heaven and hell in what is essentially a love song. For example, "paper angels" and "little devils." Also, notice the "furnace wind" and the more benign image of incense. I think he is singing about a love that he cannot help, but that he knows is wrong.
i really like this song! its beautiful! guess i just want to be craig's original sin 4 ever!
i love this song and the video. if anyone is a fan of elton you'd know that he hates to do music videos, so i think it's a great idea to use the teen idols of today in them. he'll attract a younger audience and at the same time keep his "older" fans.
i think the original sin refers to adam and eve in the garden of eden...the first sin commited.maybe its the guy's first love or something...till its become a kind of obsession.fatal attraction of some sort.
To me I think this song is talking about a man who were in love with some girl in the past and then htey separated as she became a star or something and she married another man but as he is still loving her so that love became a sin . The first 4 verses describe a party which the singer is attending and in which lights are focused upon that famous girl ( maybe her wedding). the 2nd 4 verses describe the heat he feels inside ( as he still loves her) which made her looks more and more beautifull in his eyes . the following verses is talking about him as he can't forget her sothat he can't live an ordinary life ( can't eat can't sleep ....) and ofcourse his feelings for her are sinful because she married another man and she is not his girl any more. in the verses that's forming the chorus he is wondering how does she still has that much effect on him although they have been apart since along time ago and he is explaining that by admitting that she was always his original forbidden love(sin). and now he knows that the dream of being with her will vanish soon (the dream will fly the time u open up ur eyes) and his life would be empty as ( ghosts will be at every corner in his life ) . at last as he is awake from his thoughts and dreams he is observing the great care that people are offering for her ( as she is a big star ) and how people are trying to win her love by saying words of love which they are not really feeling (reciting lines that they don't understand) while he is the only one who realy have faithful love for her . this is my openion about what this song means . any comments?
I think it.s about a man that onced love a women who moved on into some kind of fame, weather an exotic dancer of some kind of actress. he probably didn't want her to move on and he still lusts for her along with everyone else. When he sees her the process starts all over again. Is there any way to ask the writer what was on his mind when he wrote this?