| This Mortal Coil – The Jeweller Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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My dad always thought the song was about a Holocaust survivor. A Jewish jeweller who lost his loved ones hence the use of ashes and blood as metaphors. Cleaning the coins; there is a popular misconception that Jews place coins on the eyes of their deceased, so perhaps the songwriter incorporated this into the lyrics. The jeweller sits alone in the dark and tries to restore the coins to their mint condition. He works until there is blood on his hands, on the ashes, on the coins, all the while knowing he can never retrieve the past. It is ashes... his loved ones are ashes. Ashes do indeed signify redemption, but they may also have a darker meaning here. He is trying really hard to maintain his faith in God in-spite of his anguish, (a very Jewish trait) using the coins as substitutes and trying to erase the scars. Sometimes his grief overwhelms him and he cries... |
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