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Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me) Lyrics
Lay my head on the surgeon's table
Take my fingerprints if you are able
Pick my brains, pick my pockets
Steal my eyeballs and come back for the sockets
Run every kind of test from A to Z
And you'll still know nothing 'bout me
Run my name though your computer
Mention me in passing to your college tutor
Check my records, check my facts
Check if I paid my income tax
Pore over everything in my C.V.
But you'll still know nothing 'bout me
You'll still know nothing 'bout me
You don't need to read no books on my history
I'm a simple man, it's no big mystery
In the cold weather, a hand needs a glove
At times like this, a lonely man like me needs love
Search my house with a fine tooth comb
Turn over everything 'cause I won't be at home
Set up your microscope and tell me what you see
You'll still know nothing 'bout me
This song is always telling me that some people may think they know him or you or me but they really don't. No matter what you do or say you really don't know me as well as you think.
I agree w/ chris14799. This song explains that you could examine someone every day for the rest of your life. Likely Sting is referring to the papparazzi here.
I agree w/ chris14799. This song explains that you could examine someone every day for the rest of your life. Likely Sting is referring to the papparazzi here.
It is tongue in cheek: you can examine me to the point of stealing my eyeballs and coming back for the sockets.
It is tongue in cheek: you can examine me to the point of stealing my eyeballs and coming back for the sockets.
I think it can also apply to our life today with computers, technology, handheld devices enabling a total lack of privacy.
I think it can also apply to our life today with computers, technology, handheld devices enabling a total lack of privacy.
Ironically even with all of this information, unless you are a part of a person's life and that person actually wants you there, you likely know nothing about them....
Ironically even with all of this information, unless you are a part of a person's life and that person actually wants you there, you likely know nothing about them. I think it means anything you can hear or observe about someone this way is likely false. The truth of a person's soul is that in which they are willing to let you see. Everything else is superficial BS and basically useless knowledge.
Of course this could have been directed to someone else but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was pointing his finger at you. Like you would have cared ... You started out telling me that you knew him oh so well but you said he was some seven years older than he really was and that he played the drums. And me, being the flake, didn't even know you were putting me on. You were really getting off on making me look silly and I couldn't help it--I had to look silly. I found this song unnerving. It was like he was saying, Al is making such a fool of you. And it could have been that. From "Pure Love" by Zucchero and Delores O'Riordan.."this is the strangest feeling ...something I can't control... do I play the fool for you?" Guess so.
[Sting]: It's a tongue in cheek, lightheartedly saying, "Well, you've heard the songs. Y'know - Nothin' 'bout me!" I think it's hard to know someone. I think to know someone really well you have to actually love them. And you have to love them for their good points and their bad points. So you have to live with them, really. You know, I, I, I, I've been the victim of a lot of amateur psychoanalysis and yet the only person, people who really know me are, are my family, y'know? And, and they seem to, to put up with me, so.
[Sting]: Nothing 'Bout Me (1994) was the track I finished the last album with. It's a tongue-in-cheek reaction to all the amateur psychology I'm subjected to whenever I put an album out. Listeners figure they can work you out through the songs. And they probably can. I'm not sure it suits my purpose to be so transparent though, so this is my attempt at diverting that. It's supposed to be a funny song. I make no bones about my debt to black American music of the Sixties. It led me on to jazz and a lot of other things. I went from the Beatles to Motown to Jimi Hendrix to Miles Davis. Then I joined the Police which was another diversion in my life.
She was a good looking doll I stood there like a jerk And in fact—got drink-drunk that night I was hit by the proprietor Breaking up a fight Before I had a chance to decide to hit him back (which I didn’t do …) I was out on the street I tried to rush back in But they had locked the door And were looking at me through the forbidden glass in the door With faces like undersea I should have played with her
So there I am—in dawn—in my dim cell My mind whirls with life! Oh well, anyway, I’ll be learning Eventually—to like the railroad And Lily will like me someday and anyway Another day—another dollar I get embarrassed thinking what all the people In the world are gonna say to see a man running So devilishly fast—just to catch a goddam train Then I think to myself—what the fuck? Why should I give a shit what they think?
Kerouac (paraphrased
The US version of "Ten Summoner's Tales" only has 11 tracks on it, with this being the last one. Now, knowing that 'summoner' was a play on Sting's surname (Sumner), and this song being the 11th and final track (the epilogue), it seemed to me that this song was intended as a sort of foil to the rest of the album. Sort of like "Oh, you thought those 10 songs were autobiographical, did you? Ha! I'm a performer, I sell fantasy!"