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The Light Dies Down On Broadway Lyrics
As he walks along the gorge's edge,
He meets a sense of yesteryear.
A window in the bank above his head
Reveals his home amidst the streets.
Subway sounds, the sounds of complaint
The smell of acid on his gun of paint.
As it carves out anger in a blood-red band,
Destroyed tomorrow by an unknown hand;
My home.
Is this the way out from this endless scene?
Or just an entrance to another dream?
And the light dies down on Broadway.
But as the skylight beckons him to leave,
He hears a scream from far below.
Within the raging water, writhes the form
Of brother John, he cries for help.
The gate is fading now, but open wide,
But John is drowning, I must decide
Between the freedom I had in the rat-race,
Or to stay forever in this forsaken place;
Hey John!
He makes for the river and the gate is gone,
Back to the void where it came from.
And the light dies down on Broadway.
This song is about choices, plain and simple. Rael has gone through hell and not yet back. He has a chance to return to NYC, but his brother John who has betrayed him several times over anyway by this point, needs his help. Helping him means Rael doesn't go home, but he saves his brother and in some way, maybe redeems his own miserable life as a street thug.
wow that's a really beautiful explanation. it's really fun to read about these sort of things. i love concept albums.
I beleieve this whole album is a great story about a young punk who is either dead or in a coma. As he goes through the different stages of death he comes across fear, sadness, lust & confusion. I am not sure why he is looking for his brother John,unless John himself is dead. At the very last song of LLDOB I beleive when Rael finally realizes that he is not trying to save his brother John , but himself, he finally dies.
This story is setting up Rael for the big test. His monomythic character has descended into the abyss and passed through death. The test is whether he will give up everything to save his brother who, we already know, wouldn't even help him recover his manhood from the Raven. In the end, he will discover that the choice was actually to save himself, because all is one.
I agree with most of what everyone's said here. This is a test of Rael's character. Can he resist temptation and leave behind what he's been longing for in order to save his brother, who keeps leaving him in moments of danger and has basically been acting pretty aloof and uncaring for the entire album's story? By choosing to go back and save his selfish brother, Rael proves his worth as a person and ends up being rewarded by becoming... "it." I'm still a bit confused by that, but whatever.
I noticed the first verse is sung to the tune of The Lamia, or at least the part that says "Each empty snakelike body floats, silent sorrow in empty boats..." Also, this and The Lamia are the only songs on The Lamb that have portions written in third person.
Yes, The music of this song is a sort of fusion of two other songs of the same album: "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and "The Lamia".