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.
Where do you walk on sunny times
When the rivers gleam and the buildings shine
How do you feel when the pollen falls
And the summer clothes brighten gloomy halls
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
Where do you fit in zip magazine
Where the past is the hero and the present a queen
Just tell me right now where do you fit in
With mud in your eye and a passion for gin
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
Hey, goodbye all you punks
Stay young and stay high
Hand me my checkbook
And I'll crawl out to die
But like a woman in childbirth
Grown ugly in a flash
I'm seen magic and fame
Now I'm recycling trash
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
When the rivers gleam and the buildings shine
How do you feel when the pollen falls
And the summer clothes brighten gloomy halls
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
Where do you fit in zip magazine
Where the past is the hero and the present a queen
Just tell me right now where do you fit in
With mud in your eye and a passion for gin
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
Hey, goodbye all you punks
Stay young and stay high
Hand me my checkbook
And I'll crawl out to die
But like a woman in childbirth
Grown ugly in a flash
I'm seen magic and fame
Now I'm recycling trash
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
And they're all in love
Lyrics submitted by Chris_Gough
They Are All in Love Lyrics as written by Pete Townshend
Lyrics © Spirit Music Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
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This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
When We Were Young
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
This obscure Townsend song is one of my favorites. To me, its about loneliness and looking upon lovers that increase that loneliness. Its also about a guy or girl who is not in the dull mainstream and who doesn't know where he or she fits in the commercial and media worlds. Further still, its about Pete, who has gone past his days as the "original" punk rocker and calls out for the young punks to stay young and "high" because he, Pete, has become a domesticated citizen recycling trash. The reference in the last verse to a "woman in child birth growing ugly in a flash" is not to be taken literally or suggest that a woman who is giving birth is literally ugly. It is a typical Townsend-like metaphor for the swift change in Pete's life from a handsome fashionalbe young rocker to a guy that looks like anyone of us. If you dig this song, please send me an email. I figured out the chords and most of Nicky Hopkins piano solo and play and sing it from time to time.
I think the "recycling trash" bit probably refers to his sometimes ultra-negative estimate of his own work. When the punk movement was breaking into prominence he thought they were the future and he was the past, washed-up, a "prostitute" as he put it. None of that was true, but that was Townshend's view in his more depressive and/or drunk moments.