There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
Harmful elements in the air
symbols clashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
while the population feeds
Junk floats on polluted water
an old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23?
Leave your yens on the counter please
Hong Kong Garden
Tourists swarm to see your face
Confuscius has a puzzling grace
Disoriented you enter in
unleashing scent of wild jasmine
Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
Hong Kong Garden
symbols clashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
while the population feeds
Junk floats on polluted water
an old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23?
Leave your yens on the counter please
Hong Kong Garden
Tourists swarm to see your face
Confuscius has a puzzling grace
Disoriented you enter in
unleashing scent of wild jasmine
Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
Hong Kong Garden
Lyrics submitted by Kaitou
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More Featured Meanings
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Trouble Breathing
Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio
While the obvious connections with suicide or alcoholism could be drawn easily, more subtly this song could be about someone who views the world through a negative lens constantly and how as much as the writer tries to show the beauty in the world, this person refuses to see it. It's one or another between the rope and the bottle. There is no good option for this person. They can't see it. Skiba sings it in a kind of exasperated way like He's tired of hearing this negative view constantly and just allowing that person to continue feeling the way they feel knowing he can't do anything about it. You can hear it when he says maybe you're a vampire.
Another Love
Tom Odell
Tom Odell
I think the meaning is pretty clear. This person got really burned in a previous relationship, and because of this is unable to love and show care in his present one, even though he so badly wants to. It's lovely song, and very sad. You can really feel how defeated and frustrated he is with himself.
Indigo
Of Mice & Men
Of Mice & Men
This track is about is about questioning why the sky would choose to be blue if it had the choice to be anything else, “blue also meaning sad,” states frontman Aaron Pauley. “It's about comforting a loved one in a time of loss by telling them you feel blue, too.”
if it was simply about a chinese restaurant, why would she sing about polluted waterways, hammerhead? i think zeroglitter is more accurate.
siouxsie and the banshees are capable of writing "deep" songs, albeit in this case filtered through black humour. I read an article in rolling stone which said the song was about the then "ongoing slaughter in Southeast Asia". My interpretation is that the western world isn't overly aware or concerned about such tragedy, and their only real "exposure" to eastern culture is through takeaway food.
Here's the Rolling Stone link if you're interested - rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/106537/siouxsieandthebanshees
This song is a tribute to a Chinese takeaway in Chiselhurst where Siouxsie witnessed the racist abuse the Chinese owners recieved from the local skinhead population
Siouxsie: "John came up with the riff, a fragmented riff and I wrote what I thought that riff conjured up. Impressions that I drew up of the East. It's called 'Hong Kong Garden' because that's a British colonial thing and as it's part of Britain it's neutral. Mixed in with this are all the factual things that have happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the way the Japanese are fighting against the old and new ways - with Americanisation coming in. They are always having to fight back the trashy kind of thing that America put in Japan. And the same for the Chinese as well. And then there's the false impression that we get of these as well."
Steven: "The false impressions of anywhere. Like in England or Scotland. Like caricatures, Irish jokes, anything. We're talking from a vulnerable point because we have never been to the East, so it's like saying we are naive about it as well. But at least we realise that."
it's black humor. Sioux and severin have simply highlighted the stereotypes that the West at that time associated with Asia. The lyrics mocks those people who have racial prejudices, and at the same time tries to tell how the skinheads tormented the owners of the restaurant, evidently with the usual stereotypical insults. Now the situation is different because young people are interested in Asian culture, but in '70s in England apparently there was a kind of general ignorance.
correction on the Rolling Stone link - rollingstone.com/reviews/ album/_/id/106537/siouxsieandthebanshees?pageid=rs.ArtistDiscography&pageregion=triple1
Erasercuts is right. I'm currently reading the Banshees biography and that's what Siouxsie says. Though they could be singing about a deeper meaning as well; the Cure does this with so many of their songs that they base on stories, books, etc. to give them a broader scope.
If you think the title sounds like the name of a Chinese restaurant, you're right. Said Siouxsie: "I'll never forget, there was a Chinese restaurant in Chislehurst called 'The Hong Kong Garden.' Me and my friend were really upset that we used to go there and like, occasionally when the skinheads would turn up it would really turn really ugly. These gits were just go in on mass and just terrorize these Chinese people who were working there. We'd try and say 'Leave them alone,' you know. It was a kind of tribute." (from Punk Top Ten Interview , August 6, 2001.
This song sounds so beautiful and melancholic, I don't care if it's about a restaurant, Viva Siouxsie! A fantastic artist
I think it's about the western world taking advantage of eastern culture and traditions. It refers to the brutal commercialisation of things that should be kept sacred and beautiful.
zeroglitter, you're looking way too deep. the first entry is actually correct, its about a chinese restaurant.
Although this is a simple two chord song, I think it is amazing. The riff just really fits in and Siouxsie just tops it off with her voice.