6 Meanings
Add Yours
Share
All In A Mouse's Night Lyrics
Loving Couple:
I can't see you but I know you're there.
Got to get beside you cos it's really cold out here.
Come up close to me you'll soon be warm.
Hold me tightly like we're sheltering from a storm.
Mouse:
Think I might go out for a stroll
Into the night, and out of this hole.
Maybe find me a meal.
Walking along this new shag pile
Presents a problem all the while.
Nearly the door.
Suddenly he bumps into wood, the door is closed.
A voice from the bed, he'll be exposed.
Which way to run, must make for the hole,
The light's been turned on, he's blind as a mole in coal.
Now I can see they're coming at me,
They've blocked off my door, I haven't a chance in hell.
Couple:
Come on baby let the poor thing go.
I'm not sleeping with that thing around here, no.
Alright then, I'll fetch a box from below,
Guard him carefully, they're very quick you know.
Mouse:
The door's been opened, my chance to escape.
Must run out quick, better sorry than late.
I'm out on the stairs.
They won't catch me now, I've the run of the house now.
I'll make it downstairs and into the breadbin.
That would be nice.
Suddenly he bumps into fur, that's very unwise,
A cat is much quicker than men and their eyes.
The chase that ensues can have only one end,
Unless outside help steps in for our friend in need.
But now the cat comes in for the kill,
His paw is raised, soon blood will spill, yes it will.
Cat:
Hard luck mouse, this is the end of your road.
The signpost says inside me, let me bear your heavy load.
But it's not to be, that final pounce
Knocks a jar upon his head, and lays him out.
But it's all in a mouse's night
To take on all those who would fight.
Cat's Story:
There I was with my back to the wall,
Then comes this monster mouse, he's ten feet tall,
With teeth and claws to match.
It only took one blow.
just a story of a fight between a cat and a mouse.
I love this so simple yet highly amusing
They must of been watching a lot of Tom and Jerry while watching this :D.
Tony Banks has said this is one of his least favourite lyrics, especially the bit about the bread bin.
However I do like it...and I have always thought they were probably watching Tom & Jerry when they wrote this. I like how we hear this from several points of view...the cat, the mouse and the couple. Musically it is a bit twee.
@absinthedude Phil wasn't crazy about that lyric either. From a 1982 interview: "Tony knows I'm less enamoured with some of his stuff [...] I'm the singer in the group, I have to sing those lyrics. If someone's not a singer, they come in with lyrics that look good but aren't easy to sing. I've had all sort of things to cope with, I mean "breadbin" was in one song, what the f*** do you do with that?"
@absinthedude Phil wasn't crazy about that lyric either. From a 1982 interview: "Tony knows I'm less enamoured with some of his stuff [...] I'm the singer in the group, I have to sing those lyrics. If someone's not a singer, they come in with lyrics that look good but aren't easy to sing. I've had all sort of things to cope with, I mean "breadbin" was in one song, what the f*** do you do with that?"
One of my many favorites by Genesis. The lyrics really don’t have to have a special meaning. But this song is a tale of a mouses night, lurking in a house, until it runs into a cat , in the end, a monster mouse ten feet tall with teeth claws to match….” Is the cats end. What a song of imagination! But this is why many of us love Genesis. Blood on the Rooftops gives me an England flavor. When you live in another country, you wonder how other peoples of other nations go about their evenings. This song gives that feeling
A tail of cat and mouse. But is it a metaphor for something more sinister?
Nope, it's just a tail of cat and mouse ;-)
@proggie I'm with ya there...you always are on the look out for an underlying meaning with pre-80's Genesis...but I think you're right...just a story about a cat and mouse. :)
@proggie I'm with ya there...you always are on the look out for an underlying meaning with pre-80's Genesis...but I think you're right...just a story about a cat and mouse. :)
The music is so complex, truly exquisite GENESIS at their peak...but what inane lyrics...compared to the mix seamlessly into Blood On The Rooftops, which musically hints at one of their epoch songs, Afterglow. However, lyrically, the dichotomy is perplexing.
I just imagine Phil Collins playing the the support, and singing, behind the complex key changes, and intricacies, musically, of All In A Mouses Night, and singing WTF lyrics.
Personally I like them (the lyrics)...I have been a GENESIS fanatic since the early, early days...my first GENESIS concert was 1977. FOXTROT. BUT...since this has always been one of my favorite GENESIS albums...maybe I need to go back and smoke some weed to make sense of All In A Mouses Night, lyrics, played to such incredible music.