| Tom Waits – A Sight for Sore Eyes Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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The melody is based on the Christmas song 'The First Noelle'. This is probably my favourite Waits song, it's just beautiful. I think it's sung from the point of view of a guy sitting at a bar drowning his sorrows, so to speak. An old friend comes home (maybe for Christmas time going on the melody) and decides to visit his old hangout/bar only to find out from his old friend at the bar (the singer) that they're all gone their seperate ways. The majority of the song is these two catching up on old times. The singer fills the other guy in on what's happened to everybody. The singer definitely comes across as very lonely the all the old gang are gone, I'd guess that before his old friend walked in he was sitting at the bar on his own. I love the way that, from line to line, it jumps between different conversation topics, showing the progression of the convo throughout the night and how time passes so quickly as they're catching up. In the last verse, for example, they're challenging each other to pinball in one line and the singer is telling his friend to approach a girl in the next. It's kinda sad, I think this really conveys how delighted they are to see each other after all these years. The night flies by and it'll be years more before they see each other again (if ever). Gotta say, the second last verse (where he tells about his old friend being killed in a crash) gets me every time. The line "he died with the radio on" is amazing. It's syllabically shorter than all the other lines that take place at that part of the melody during the song and because of this (the dead, unexpected stop in the lyrics) it just hits you. It's possible that this was done not just to make you notice but to reflect the notion of the car stopping suddenly upon hitting the telephone pole. Apart from that the line itself sends a chill down my spine. It's such a small detail to say that the radio was on but it just personalises it so much and places you in the situation yourself. Anyway, I've rambled on long enough... |
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