Green Lyrics
Then there were candles
And a phoenix burned my bed
These are subwords
These are air
In one house
In one place
At all times
And green eyes
Who are you for?
I got no more
What is this?
This last cigarette
I feel sick
Now there are words in my head
Burned it inside out
Kneel in my ashes
Kneading them
In one house
In one place
At all times
And green eyes
Who are you for?
I got no more
What is this?
And now you're leaving again, no
To knock at the moon
And the stars come out at night
What's that beyond the floor?
You were left screaming
My hands are in your hair
You're on the deep with the stars(?)
Where are your candles?
(...can see my...)
And a phoenix that was you in my bed
These are subwords
These are air
(Turning my body around)
In one house
In one place
At all times
(There's one boy)
And green eyes
Who are you for?
I got no more
What is this?
It begins
There's a man dancing at me
He's making circles
So I will tell you now
(I wear your clothes)
I wear your clothes like armour
(I love your face)
I love your face like God
So you're in love and I'm indebted always
Green eyes
And now you're leaving again
No...
The second in the magnificent Throwing Muses trilogy.
My guess (and I could be ridiculously wrong) is that she is in love "with one boy" and living with someone "in one house" who is jealous (hence the green eyes ). He thinks she has other lovers, but
I got no more Who are you for? I got no more What is this?
And this is making them both a little crazy.
There are mentions of the greater heavens
Temper and tempest To knock at the moon And the stars come out at night
almost indicating that this jealousy is an eternal force, an endless cycle.
In the last verse, there are some beautiful lines
I love your face like God So you're in love and I'm indebted always Green eyes And now you're leaving again
that seem to evoke the elemental power, beauty and frustration of romantic and jealous love.
The meaning parallels a saying by Nietzsche: "There is always some madness in love. But there is also some reason in madness." Must like the madness in loving the melody of "Green" thus compelling one to play this track again & again...
The thing that amazes me about this song is that Tanya wrote it when she was 15. She understood more about the madness of love as a naive teenager than most poets do as adults.