You Could Be The One

no question here, hippie chicks are good for a quick lay sayth eldritch

the subtexts of using hippie chicks for sex are plentiful we're going for a ride - this line is a double entendre, mixing the metaphors of riding someone (sexually) and taking them for a ride- to scam or trick them

also, "... to get your flower pressed" to deflower someone is oldschool for taking their virginity pressed flowers are usually added to a collection.

on the other side, for him, it is just today, like getting his "collar pressed," its just part of his daily maintenance.

Finally, "this pretty little thing in the armor plate" is one of my favorite references to the gothic persona of all time.

excellent synical take on the beatles' "love is all you need" / the free love movement in general free love? i'll take 3! pretty little thing in the armor plate may be my favorite reference to goth ever

I see a really nice pun in the term Karma. Could be mistaken for comma there.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=comma (Plus I had heard "Shaking one´s comma" as saying "bloke having a wee" in some film, which initially gave me the idea there might be a sexual allusion covered in a pun here. As a non-native english speaker, one´s not nearly good with colloquial terms, as they are (surprisingly enough) not being taught at school, but apparently when dealing with Sisters of Mercy Lyrics, one should be expecting to encounter them, for example Hallways.. Like that, a non native speaker requires a couple of decades to get through the ironies in the lyrics. One should be ashamed, really.)

In that context

I'm in a hurry to get my karma straight 'Cause life is short and I can't wait But don't worry about the state Of this pretty little thing in the armour plate

could be read as the narrator putting words into the mouth of the person he´s adressing in the lyrics, saying something like "I´m mainly worried about the body liquids and their connection to the universe, never mind politics".. Remembering that this song was written about 1½ decades before the dawn of the cybergoth stuff and the (inane) militaria thing in the goff scene, a "Pretty litle thing in the armour plate" most likely doesn´t refer to a goth girl in fake military clothing or anything similar, but probably a gun between the parts of protective shields on top of a riot control vehicle or a tank´s canon, an Uzi hidden in an armoured limousine or something of that kind.

For me

But all those precious things are better left unsaid When you can give me hair And run your fingers though my head

also points in that direction. This song was written in the very last phase of the cold war, the threat of a nuclear holocaust still looming over everything on earth. It is a symptom of Acute Radiation Syndrome that a person loses all hair. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome So a person in the final stage before dying from radiation could easily give you a handfull of hair. If your head exploded before that, it could even run its fingers through it. And that´s how I understand this.

The entire song seems to be saying "Sure I like having fun with hippes, if only they´d wake up and face the real world the way it is, though." to me. In a pretty ironical way.