Games People Play

Since "The Turn of a Friendly Card" is a concept album dealing with gambling, this song isn't about any relationship. It's about why people begin to gamble. Everybody else has grown up and you still haven't achieved anything because you always wait for destiny to solve problems for you.

I think it's more about a couple that has lost the feelings towards each other a long time ago, but kept together for their childs sake.

Now that they've grown up, and maybe even left home they wonder what to do now. They have been left to themselves, the kids won't even call them (how do we spend our lives knowin' nobody gives us a damn)

Should they try to revive the long lost sparks? But how could they, if they've come to know each other so well, so they can't even lie about it (If I promise you the Moon and the Stars, Would you believe it?).

The only thing that's clear is that he's not willing to Quietly fade away, so he want's to leave.

Don't think he'll do it, dough. Inertia is a powerful state.

The lyrics never indicate whose children. Where do we go from here now that (all other) (all of the) children... It may be a couple that never had children. Now that they are reaching their twilight years they are filled with sadness that (there's no one to lend us a hand) (nobody gives a damn). A lonely death is surely a sad one.

(Ain't gonna spend the rest of my life, Quietly fading away) Could it be related to "do not go gentle into that good night"?

Not sure how all this relates to (Games people play) or (Honor Brite).

This was the first APP song I heard and fell in love with, which I do associate personally with being a kid, but I remember loving this song, then and now. And at the time, "games" to me, meant board games.

As I grew older, this song to me, along with the casino theme of the album, seemed like it was from the point of view of an aging black jack dealer or floor manager of the casino - someone who has been an employee there for several years, having seen a lot over the years, and being tired and burned out, wanting out of casino life. I imagine someone in that role would be like the furniture or a fly on the wall, unnoticed but an observer to the unsavory side of casino life (knowledge of illicit affairs, high profile clientele, prostitution, drug deals, other illegal activities, watching people come and go) and I took the "all the children have grown up" to mean he has seen generations of people come and go, either children of his co-workers, or seeing fathers, sons, and their sons come and go in the casino. In the song, the singer seems to be at a point in his life where he wants to walk away from it all, which may not be so easy to do, with everything that he knows. He seems a bit jaded, "where do we spend our lives knowing nobody gives us a damn?" He's unappreciated, overworked, and has been keeping secrets and doing his job for years in an unfulfilling job, and it has sucked the life out of him. He doesn't like the fact that these types of activities and this lifestyle is part of "business as usual".

I could be totally wrong, but the fast-paced synth of it brings to mind that this song is from the point of view of an observer, not someone who is necessarily involved in the activities.

Great song. Always loved it.

I like to think this song is about an artistic couple who moved out to the suburbs 20 years ago to raise their children. When the youngest one graduates from High School the husband immediately realizes they are out in a big lonely house with each other-having lost each other long ago while being tied up in soccer games, school activities, potluck dinners...maybe even a country club.

He is asking the wife what they should do as he'd like to move to a small townhome in the city and feel creative and flourish, realize his dreams, now that all of the children are grown up. The wife, on the other hand, enjoys the suburban life, her bridge games with the other wives (that go late into the middle of the night because the housewives get real drunk and gossip about each other)

The husband feels that if he stays in the deadly boring burbs, he will fade away and perhaps die faster than if he had an active life in a more stimulating environment. So he doesn't wanna stay there no more..

But in fact, neither of them really know what they want to do with themselves now that all of the children have grown up................................................ and gone away.......and don't help them...and don't think about them......sad....

The album is about a man who goes off to gamble it all. This song sounds like his break from his family....his realization that now the children are gone, he doesn't see any future. So off he goes to gamble...and ultimately loses it all.

No it's not.

yea. the people dont want to live just because kids are growing up?

that's ridiculous.

Seems like they're just realising their eventual mortality to me, don't know what left to do with life, feel like they've done everything.

sounds like the above to me - but in relation to me the games people play, that people don't know about - 2 faces