1 Meaning
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
The Myth of Trust Lyrics
I woke up this morning
To find that we have outlived the myth of trust
You woke up this morning
To the fact we've lost the things
We took for granted between us
And I grew up in awe of the girl next door
And the boy that never cried
And I was dreaming of those Elizabethan girls
While you were working in the market
To earn ourselves
And when you found out what happened yesterday
While you were away in this land of Cain
We were upstairs in the bedroom
Dancing disgusting
And flushing our babies down the drain
And the apple that don't want to get eaten
Will still fall off the tree
When you're in as deep as we are honey
It's so easy to get washed out to sea
For the facts of life are not man and wife
But man and woman sadly
And the apple that don't want to get eaten
Will still fall off the tree
I woke up this morning
To find that we have outlived the myth of trust
To find that we have outlived the myth of trust
You woke up this morning
To the fact we've lost the things
We took for granted between us
And I grew up in awe of the girl next door
And the boy that never cried
And I was dreaming of those Elizabethan girls
While you were working in the market
To earn ourselves
And when you found out what happened yesterday
While you were away in this land of Cain
We were upstairs in the bedroom
Dancing disgusting
And flushing our babies down the drain
And the apple that don't want to get eaten
Will still fall off the tree
When you're in as deep as we are honey
It's so easy to get washed out to sea
For the facts of life are not man and wife
But man and woman sadly
And the apple that don't want to get eaten
Will still fall off the tree
To find that we have outlived the myth of trust
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
This has long been one of my favorite Billy Bragg songs. It's so dark. A melodramatic rendering of an affair, for sure, in which a couple of images from Genesis are evoked: the Land of Cain (a.k.a. Land of Nod), the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden.
My guess is that the singer is addressing his wife, admitting that he's betrayed her by having an affair with another woman in the marital bedroom. "Dancing disgusting" = sex, and "flushing our babies down the drain" = the sperm he's wasting on sex with this other woman, perhaps literally flushed away in a condom, and at any rate won't be used to create a baby with his wife. Perhaps the other woman is a next-door neighbor, since he talks about growing up in awe of the girl next door. I think it's elliptical on purpose, but it's fun to speculate.