The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
In pitch dark
I go walking in your landscape
Broken branches
Trip me as I speak
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
There's always a siren
Singing you to shipwreck
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Steer away from these rocks
We'd be a walking disaster
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
(Someone on your shoulder)
(Someone on your shoulder)
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
(Someone on your shoulder)
(Someone on your shoulder)
There there
Why so green and lonely?
And lonely, and lonely?
Heaven sent you to me
To me, to me?
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen
I go walking in your landscape
Broken branches
Trip me as I speak
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
There's always a siren
Singing you to shipwreck
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Steer away from these rocks
We'd be a walking disaster
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
(Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
(Someone on your shoulder)
(Someone on your shoulder)
Just 'cause you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there
(Someone on your shoulder)
(Someone on your shoulder)
There there
Why so green and lonely?
And lonely, and lonely?
Heaven sent you to me
To me, to me?
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen
We are accidents waiting
Waiting to happen
Lyrics submitted by Mint Floss, edited by Fortunatus, thelink55
There, There Lyrics as written by Edward John O'brien Colin Charles Greenwood
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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Great version of a great song,
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
one of the most enduring Radiohead songs that rewards repeated listening, as well as arguably their most profound video. Throughout his lyrics, Thom has created a psychic landscape full of disturbing figures - nervous messed up marionettes on a prison ship (Optimistic), the man who talks in maths and buzzes like a fridge (Karma Police), the man whose mouth only moves with someone's hand up his ass (Bodysnatchers). But the ultimate nightmare is the unseen malevolent presence (because in nightmares we are often running from something we cannot see that fills us with terror). I think it's too simply to just say 'The Boney King of Nowhere = God.' There is certainly the idea of somebody stumbling on blindly in a Godless world, lost without the cathartic narrative structure for life that any religion can provide. And in this Godless world there are enticing distractions - in fact, gaining a beautiful partner has become the prime goal for many people in modern life, leading to shipwreck as we become aware of that false and futile struggle. Yet there must be something more magical and profound - the shining coat and boots in the video. And all the while there is the disturbing feeling that the whole environment, Sirens and all, are part of some unseen being's malevolent design.'Heaven sent you to me' is incongruous in this context, and we come to be suspicious of even the most fortuitous events (to me? to me?). The title 'There, There' is ironic - the protagonist cannot be pacified, he is constantly aware of this nightmarish presence and trying to point it out - There, There, look! Of course, it never reveals itself - the nightmarish presence is conscious awareness itself.
The idea that our strings are being pulled for perverse pleasure by some unseen being is the most disturbing thought in our consciousness, and rarely discussed outside of Radiohead or certain philosophers like Schopenhauer. We are accidents waiting to happen in a treacherous and dark psychic landscape that bears most resemblance to Dante's Inferno.