Afterhours

This, like so many songs by The Sisters of Mercy, is another very sensual one. It deals with the whole idea of love being over in the morning -- "2 o'clock in the morning" -- something also expressed in 'Some Kind Of Stranger'. This also is a precursor to 'Some Kind Of Stranger' with the use of the endearment "angel", in reference, of course, to the girl with whom the singer has eloped with. The concept of dying sexual emotions is furthered by how the singer commands the girl to "Get up off the floor", meaning that she was being sexual submissive to him, and to put her clothes on, since the so called "love" is over. Then again, like so many of their songs, this song contains deeper meaning than just the rather obvious sexual ones. "One more night spent on your mirror" refers to how the singers "lover" is shallow, concerned more about her appearance than personality. "Black Maria" is a British term referring to the police van that transports criminals to jail; here, the way the singer uses it could be interpreted in multiple ways, but I think it's meaning is that the girl is like a Black Maria, carrying the singer away to some sort of psychological prison. "This stuff so strange and lonely England fades away/In your eyes" -- the singer acknowledges that what they had what empty and shallow, yet the outside world seems to disappear in the moment of such intimacy, regardless of how fake and temporary it is in the end. "Ninety-four degrees through the stillness, through the heat/The cars go by on Fifth" -- 94 degrees Fahrenheit is the average internal temperature of the human body, so the singer is essentially referencing the heat emanating from the other person, yet life is still going on outside of this elopement, since while time is frozen to "stillness" for the singer, cars are still moving and people are still going about. And since the love is over and there's nothing left "It's time for us to go/Let's take a ride".

"One more night spent on your mirror....this stuff, so strange and lonely, England fades away..."

Sounds like an Englishman in an exotic country doing hard drugs with an exotic woman. Even though the situation & circumstances are lonely, shallow, meaningless, foreign & detached (calling her "Angel" makes it feel like it's just some anonymous woman he barely knows), but he's got hard drugs in his bloodstream, "breathing slow...", that steady, pulsing comfort: ....But after the passion dies down, and the edges of boredom & restlessness & emptiness start poking in, it's time to "take a ride"...maybe to score some more "strange stuff" to snort off of a mirror or just a change of scenery, but either way, on the run from something...

The other comments are very interesting and I agree. I Didn't know what a "Black Maria" is, thanks for clearing that. I want to mention in addition that this a moody, brooding menacing song and that the lyrics and the music fit perfectly to each other. You can imagine a moist cold night and a dry dusty heat at the same time (due to the deep monotonous bass and the western guitar sound). I'm sure the lyrics deal with sex (without much emotion) and drugs. So it bears some Rock'n Roll in the classic sense. But without doubt it's one of the Sisters' finest songs and one of my all time favorites in general. Let's take a ride.

Touring in the East Coast of the USA and spending the very hot NYC nights with Patricia Morrison and drugs,,,,

The other comments are very interesting and I agree. I Didn't know what a "Black Maria" is, thanks for clearing that. I want to mention in addition that this a moody, brooding menacing song and that the lyrics and the music fit perfectly to each other. You can imagine a moist cold night and a dry dusty heat at the same time (due to the deep monotonous bass and the western guitar sound). I'm sure the lyrics deal with sex (without much emotion) and drugs. So it bears some Rock'n Roll in the classic sense. But without doubt it's one of the Sisters' finest songs and one of my all time favorites in general. Let's take a ride.