You have your very own number
They dress your cage in its nature
Once you roared now you just grunt lame
Pace around pathetic pound games

want to get out won't miss you sensaround
To carry your own dead to swing your tyre tricks
want to get out in here you're bred dead quick
For the outside
The small black flowers that grow in the sky

They drag sticks along your walls
Harvest your ovaries dead mothers crawl
Here comes warden, Christ, temple, elders
Environment not yours you see through it all

want to get out won't miss you sensaround
Carry your own dead to swing your tyre tricks
want to get out in here you're bred dead quick
For the outside
The small black flowers that grow in the sky

Here chewing your tail is joy


Lyrics submitted by Ice

Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky Lyrics as written by Nicholas Jones James Bradfield

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky song meanings
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38 Comments

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  • +5
    General Comment

    It's actually explicitly about zoo animals and the way they react to their conditions. It was written after Nicky and Richey watched a documentary about this subject.

    Any attempt to relate it to human life is purely coincidental (but probably very apt).

    mytwojakeson May 30, 2002   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    I think that Richey probably saw te documentary, and wrote this lyric, comparing himself to lion.

    "Once you roared now you just grunt lame"

    Songmeaningsuseron March 04, 2003   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    this song is despair.

    beautiful.

    greenplasticon April 28, 2002   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    To those in charge, we're just a number, and we're trapped in the invisible cage they've built around us. They harvest us and use us; we have no real rights. It's really self explanotory as to meaning, and is another stab at Capitalist society.

    "Here chewing your tail is joy"... like a pig in a farm would do.

    MercyKilleron May 30, 2002   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    I know it's been a while since this song has been commented but I have some thoughts.

    My first point is that this whole deal about "The Matrix". The Matrix is a film is a representation of a common philosophical theory that the world around us is only a representation of what is real, determined by and limited to our brain, which draws direct comparisons to the physical entrapment of animals in zoos, think about it. Your mind is trapped in it's own cage of the world it creates, animals are trapped in a physical cage. However much money a film made does not change it's meaning or intent.

    My second point is that I think thestamp's theory is, while creative, extremely unlikely. My suggestion is that the small black flowers that grow in the sky would be some kind of manifest of malcontent in a world which should be perfect. I don't like to overanalyse the lyrics of songs because literacy is often substituted for poetic license, furthermore, why would people say "animals and vegetables" rather than "animals and plants". Flowers are plants, and there is no opposite of a vegetable either, I'm afraid. Black flowers exist, too. So while I have no idea what the small black flowers that grow in the sky are, I think it's a great title and a great image. Furthermore I've never heard a harp played so naturally on a song like this, usually it's so forced. Either way, I love the song!

    Blaizeon November 05, 2007   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Here's what I got from an older discussion...

    'I think it's an image from the THB-era trip to Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp. The main spotlight on the gate watchtower become known as The Black Flower of Brzezinka because of it's shape and colour. remember.org/jacobs/BlackFlower.html

    I think that Richey was comparing the fate of the animals he had seen in the documentary with the prisoners' fate - death being the only release for most.

    The "small black flowers" are the lights around the animal enclosures.'

    trimtrabon October 11, 2011   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    I read somewhere at the time that this was inspired by a polar bear at Bristol zoo. Anyone who grew up in south Wales in the 70s and early 80s would have visited the zoo at some point (I went on a school trip when I was about six) and seen this poor mad polar bear pacing endlessly up and down his small enclosure. The visitors would be looking down into what was basically a concrete pit, and I've always assumed the 'small black flowers' were the people coming and going above. Polar bears don't have great eyesight.

    aislingtonon April 01, 2014   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    it is beautiful. we are born in cages, and trapped in our own bodies. we are 'bred dead' as soon as we are born, taught to be submissive to life.

    ladyboygrrlon May 11, 2002   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Heh. Oops. I guess that makes sense, though I still think, even if it's not the intended meaning, that it can easily be used as a reference to human society/life.

    MercyKilleron June 15, 2002   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Beautiful. "wanna get out, in here you're bred dead quick". will anyone ever beat Richey's beautiful, touching and scarily real lyrics? i think not

    godsendconspiratoron March 25, 2003   Link

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