St. John The Divine

I think these are the correct words, they sound right to my ears.

And when the world will stay the same But your place in relation to it has changed And when the word begins to lose Its power to restore and soothe And when the blackness starts its spread From behind your tired head What taxes now was once your wealth What sucks and aches becomes your health

And when the night spreads into day In one unbroken spread of gray. And when the darkness fills the space Between the bone and skin of your face Seeps between your skull and brain As input filters through its stain The tightness in your brow contains What poisoned yesterday but now sustains

And when the night begins its flow And you watch yourself give up control When what was cold now keeps you warm And you watch your outer self transform And the one you love Keeps the faith that you can rise above But if you've kept faith with yourself You might admit that you could use some help

Remove yourself and study close When next the dark begins its flow The clinical the problem be Remove yourself and you will see When next the blackness flow begins I eat your pills, you eat my sins You take me back to prouder days But please don't take my anger away

I don't pray But I humble myself I am on my knees today I don't pray

No, this song like most Ted Leo stuff is about his surroundings. St John the Divine is a church in New York.

He's paralleling religion and anti-depressants. It's a stinging social commentary as most Ted Leo stuff is.

Ted, as anyone else that's been forced to choke back SSRIs can tell you that the loss of emotion (hate and anger being the strongest a human posesses) is terrifying, especially for an artist who needs to draw on them.

And I really doubt he'd be very anti-drug ;)

it most certainly is

I am on my knees today

I am surprised no one has mentioned St. John of the Cross.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John_of_the_Cross

He was a 16th century christian mystic who authored the Dark Night of the Soul. It's commonly referenced concept for a dark (depressing, fearful, lonely, etc) period one must go to attain some necessary personal rebirth.

Just a thought, from which you add some more meanings if you like.

Am I the only one that hears 'i am on my knees today' instead of 'i am on my way today'? I've listened to the song some 100 times and still hear 'knees'.

blackstarguitar, I 100% agree with you (inaccurate lyrics on this site!? Who'd have thought it!)

From looking on Timorousme.org, I guess this song has some references to the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Similar lines, themes, etc.

I think it's an anti-drug song.

The first verse is key: "the world will stay the same but your place in relation to it has changed," refers to hallucinations.

" And when the word begins to loose its power to restore and soothe" is about how you begin turning to drugs more and more for comfort.

"Well taxes now was once your wealth. When tucks and aches becomes your health," is basically about addiction, and how you begin to need the drug.

The next two verses just talk about the spread of the addiction, and how things are getting "blacker".

I'm not totally sure how the last verse relates, but there's my interpretation :)

I do hate how this site tends to post innacurate lyrics.

St. John --> St. John's Wort --> Anti-depressant

Toad and stk137's comments make sense together, if the commentary on anti-depressants is that they deprive people of St. John's necessary dark period. What I'm wondering is if Ted thinks anti-depressants are just over-diagnosed, or completely wrong in all cases.