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.
Caressing the marble and stone
Love that was special for one
The waste and the fever and hate
How I wish you were here with me now
The body that kills and hides
Matches an awful delight
Warm like a dog 'round your feet
How I wish you were here with me now
The hangman looks 'round as he waits
Gullet stretches tight and it breaks
Someday we will die in your dreams
How I wish we were here with you now
Love that was special for one
The waste and the fever and hate
How I wish you were here with me now
The body that kills and hides
Matches an awful delight
Warm like a dog 'round your feet
How I wish you were here with me now
The hangman looks 'round as he waits
Gullet stretches tight and it breaks
Someday we will die in your dreams
How I wish we were here with you now
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In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
I got to see New Order in Philadelphia at the Paladium in ?1988. They went on late. They played 58 or 59 minutes. I remember thinking, "That was not quite even an hour!" They played strange music over the sound system before they came on.
This song stood out as one they cared about and put their heart into. The rest of the show I got the feeling they were fulfilling a contract and that was it.
This spooky song was originally a Joy Division track, but is probably best known for its inclusion on the double-disc New Order 12" singles collection, Substance. I think that the song is about the ambiguity of love and hate; violence and affection both elicit such strong emotions so as to confuse the meanings of both ("awful delight").
This (along with Ceremony) was one of two Joy Division songs "left" to New Order, and the lyrics are Ian Curtis'--which never fail to give me a chill when I listen to them.
The title, as I recently found out, refers to the 1950 Humphrey Bogart film noir classic, which I suspect gives more insight into the lyrics.
I think maybe New Order changed the last line from "How I wish you were here with me now" to "How I wish we were here with you now" (Like they also want to be dead)....just a thought.
I agree with thebodiesobtained that it looks like they changed the last line to "how I wish we were here with you now", although it always struck me that they did that because that was their way of saying "We wish we were here when you wrote this to help you while you were still around".
According to 'Touching from a Distance' the 3rd line is 'the waste in the fever I heat', the 6th line is 'and shares that awful daylight', and in the last verse it's not gullet but cord. The final line, as written in the book, does switch 'you' and 'we' and as I think these are taken from Ian's actual writings it probably isn't a New Order change.
No idea what the songs about really, but it always makes think of ancient Mayan cities hidden in the jungle - 'carressing the marble and stone', 'waste in the feverish heat' (which is what it sounds like to me regardless of what the book says). I'm sure it isn't really about that though.
The ultimate in bleakness