This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'Round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God tempers all the ruins for the new shorn lands
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost
And misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'Round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'till he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail
God tempers all the ruins for the new shorn lands
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there's one thing you can say about mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost
And misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Lyrics submitted by daffy, edited by Mellow_Harsher
Misery Is the River of the World Lyrics as written by Thomas Alan Waits Kathleen Brennan
Lyrics © JALMA MUSIC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This might just be a coincidence, but the final lines of the ancient Greek play, Oedipus Rex, are:
"Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last"
Which is almost word-for-word for Tom's "Call no man happy till he dies" bit. Which is pretty interesting!
Aeschylus wrote the line based on the philosophical thought that you can only judge something on its completion; thus someone is only happy if most of his life, in total, has been joyful.<br /> <br /> Seen in the context of the song it seems to imply that a very small majority of things, actions and people are good, because they've had bad consequences or done bad things as well as good.
As far as the latter part of his career is concerned this is one of the highlights. The higher that the monkey can climb The more he shows his tail
these first three lines I believe refer to humanity as "the monkey". The higher it climbs, the more we think of ourselves as great, the more civilization advances. the more we show our tail. That is the more our bad deeds and mistakes stretch out behind us.
Good point! Its nice to compare this song to the Pixie's "This Monkey's Gone To Heaven", where mankind is also, through an evolutionary synecdoche, a single monkey who can't help but destroy himself and his world through a reverse midus touch that turns it all to shit.
there's a mother goose type poem that goes something like this:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost For want of a shoe, the horse was lost For want of a horse, the rider was lost For want of a rider, the battle was lost For want of a battle, the war was lost For want of a war, the country was lost All for the want of a horseshoe nail.
I agree that the monkey symbolizes the human climbing up the evolutionary ladder, showing it's ass . . . hydrogen bombs, genocide.
as far as "for want of a toy/ child was lost," etc . . . I thought of "desire" as it relates to "Samsara" or the suffering of the world, as detailed in Buddhist philosophy. In Buddhist thought, our negative desires contribute directly to the origin of suffering--"misery is the river of the world--everybody row."
on a brighter note, recognizing the origin of suffering, in and of itself, lifts this veil of ignorance, reducing suffering and increasing happiness. a universal goal in life.
i think Tom was feeling a bit dark--the music beautifully and strangely reflects that mood. this song always gives me chills. a great one.
tom waits is so fucking cool
I freakin' love that chromatic-pirate-bizarre circus part
This makes me think of Charon, in mythology, talking to yet another dead guy about his own view of mankind.
Charon shows up in Wait's Potter's Field, piloting a Ferry across (if i recall rightly) NYC's East River. Whoever's talking, he has intimate knoledge of the workings of God & the devil.
should be,
"for want of a life life was lost"
love this song. somehow seems surreal to me. otherworldly.
The Pixie's "This Monkey's Gone To Heaven" makes a good comparison, as in both mankind, through an odd evolutionary synecdoche, is a single, symbolic monkey who can't help but destroy himself and everything around him.
In FishThatSwim's nursery rhyme's [above] moral, every object, every animal, every person is given an infinite worth through a kind of 'butterfly effect'. In Wait's take, everything in the world is found lacking, and that lack (which we might call desire, for we can only want what we don't have) engulfs us, destroys us.
There's nothing kind about mankind uses one of my favorite rhetorical devices: antanaclasis, where a word is repeated with different meanings, like othello's "Put out the light[candle], and put out the light[murder]."
I'm assuming the bit about thistles and tree trunks doesnt refer to the prior church/chapel, but to the miniscule good in the world - big as a thistle up against an oak. But that doesnt seem quite right to me- any ideas?
I like to think of the song as a Theodicity- a meditation on the origin of evil in the world.
I love especially the line where the devil knows the bible like the back of his hand.
AAAARRRRR!