| Tom Waits – Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I think it's more simple and more sophisticated than many suggest. It's easy to say a Waits' song from this era is about alcohol or bars, but that's basically just the backdrop to this. On some level it seems to simply be about falling for someone, then being out on tour and missing that person. This is backed up by the fact he was away from home when he wrote it. 'I've lost my St Christopher now that I've kissed.' - St Christopher being the patron Saint of travellers, meaning he has literally lost his will to travel now that he has fallen for her. How could it be put more simply than that? These bars and clubs are no fun anymore. These foreign scenes. There are all these people but he still feels alone despite the alcohol and social scenarios he used to revel in. He admits he's 'tired of these soldiers' - possibly suggesting he's grown tired of the 'soldiers' in the bars who seek the 'violence' of finding someone (more on this violence thing in a sec). The way this woman 'made him' love her is viewed as a violent act throughout: I begged you to stab me (take my heart). You tore my shirt open (and took my heart) Not only that, he even sets the scene of where she takes his heart: 'You buried the dagger in your silhouette window light' - that's a romantic scene, given a violent edge. She MADE him love her. He was almost fighting against it (soldier?) but willing it to happen. Furthermore, it's a love that aches more with the travelling aspect of being a touring musician: 'And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace And a wound that will never heal' - the wound is the ache in his heart. He has already mentioned the female having torn his shirt open and stabbed him in the chest (heart). If it will never heal, it is an enduring, endless love. Those seem to be the key lines that relate to someone else. It can definitely be read as an alcohol addiction metaphor, and I think that's a deliberate aspect on the meaning as well. It has more than one meaning. I think the romantic love versus travelling is the key aspect though. I don't think he WANTS to be away from her, or that he has is travelling to get away from her. Those lines don't seem to back up the fact that he's lost his St Christopher. He would've FOUND a St Christopher if he wanted to travel. I think his job has taken him away and the things he used to enjoy and find solace in (going to bars and getting drunk) aren't any fun anymore. They're just full of strangers, foreigners and broken men. It's so full of regret about being away from home, that it couldn't be about WANTING to be away from home. |
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| Ryan Adams – Harder Now That It's Over Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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it's quite strange that so many of you can say it's 'obviously' not about REALLY being arrested, and that you're all looking for the cuffs to be a metaphor... who's to say it isn't a real arrest? seems to correlate well with the lyrics to '29', which is (according to Adams) very autobiographical... 'I got arrested down south for hitting a clerk I spit in his face, the bastard knocked me out He leered at my lady and then he touched her face Thank God she had the money to bail me out' seems to be the same incident. |
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