This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
All the towers of ivory are crumbling
And the swallows have sharpened their beaks
This is the time of our great undoing
This is the time that I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
Now the light in our window is fading
And the candle gutters on the ledge
Well now sorrow, it comes a-stealing
And I'll cry, girl, but I'll come a-running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
Once again
Gone are the days of rainbows
Gone are the nights of swinging from the stars
For the sea will swallow up the mountains
And the sky will throw thunder-bolts and sparks
Straight at you
But I'll come a-running
Straight to you
But I'll come a-running
One more time
Now Heaven has denied us its kingdom
The saints, they're are drunk howling at the moon
And the chariots of angels are colliding
Well, I'll run, babe, but I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
And the swallows have sharpened their beaks
This is the time of our great undoing
This is the time that I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
Now the light in our window is fading
And the candle gutters on the ledge
Well now sorrow, it comes a-stealing
And I'll cry, girl, but I'll come a-running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
Once again
Gone are the days of rainbows
Gone are the nights of swinging from the stars
For the sea will swallow up the mountains
And the sky will throw thunder-bolts and sparks
Straight at you
But I'll come a-running
Straight to you
But I'll come a-running
One more time
Now Heaven has denied us its kingdom
The saints, they're are drunk howling at the moon
And the chariots of angels are colliding
Well, I'll run, babe, but I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
Lyrics submitted by Girgo, edited by Mellow_Harsher
Straight To You Lyrics as written by Nicholas Cave
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Worthwhile to note that Brother, My Cup Is Empty (also from Henry's Dream) contains the lines
"Well I've been sliding down on rainbows Well I've been swinging from the stars"
You know, I've never really thought about Henry's Dream being a concept album, but I guess it is. Your comment makes me want to go back and look for more repetition.
I find this song very painful to listen to, yet it's one of my favorites. I can't explain the paradox. I just know that listening to it (especially with headphones) makes me feel like I'm going to physically explode.
My favorite Nick Cave song. It floats very well throughout the song.
I'm guessing it's about a dying relationship that the singer can't get over.
This used to be my fav. It probably isn't anymore but it still ranks pretty highly.
Anyway, I always thought the idea was no matter what, the narrator would always love this girl and always make an effort to be with her.
Nick uses a lot of religous imagery to convey a bleak apocalyptic picture which I don't think is a metaphor for the relationship at all but is either a deepistion of the world at large at the moment or an actual description of the world ending as Nick see's it and despite what's going on around him still wanting to only be with his love.
In terms of meaning it is a very similar song, I would argue, as (I'll Love You) Till the End of the World.
Another possibility is that Nick is describing the death of religion or it's lack of compatability in modernity and decline and failure to remain relevent i particular amongst the intelligentsia.
Heaven has denied us its kingdom The saints are drunk howling at the moon The chariots of angels are colliding
It's quite an ambigous song and I still havn't concluded as to what its about other than love, rleigion etc
To me this seems to be about his drugs addiction.
The moment when the highs are not so great anymore and the lows are worse and worse. But still he has been captured and keeps going back. The second verse describes this perfectly: "Gone are the days of Rainbows" "For the sea (the low) will swallow up the mountains (the high)"
The recurring sentence "one more time" seems also an obvious pointer towards addiction.
@erikpieter I have always felt it was about heroin.
Just perfect. This was the song that made me buy everything Nick Cave had recorded. I think it's about star-crossed love, about everything being against you. That third verse is tremendous - "the sky will throw thunderbolts & sparks/ straight at you". That's not an accident, it's personal - something is out to destroy them. But he doesn't care. This has got to be one of the most powerful love songs ever written.
This almost seems like a pleasant daydream, for Nick Cave. It's grandiose! Exciting! Everything can go f**k itself! There's nothing left holding things in their places and he can take off and go running, straight to the one he loves.
I take the description of the destruction of the world to be judgement day, the end of the world. Particularly the image of the 'ivory tower' crumbling, which connotes civilisation and privilege. The fact that he returns to 'her' infers that she is the one, the one he is meant to be with, that he will take refuge with.
If we take the 'end of the world' to be a metaphor for difficult times in our lives, times when everything falls apart- this is when he goes to the girl he loves as 'I am captured' which connotes a difficult unbalanced relationship. Perhaps he is running to her despite knowing it is the wrong thing to do.
The repetition of 'one more time' and 'once again' supports this idea that he is returning to this woman every time things go wrong, and that this is an unhealthy and destructive relationship.
Beautiful lyrics- my favourite is the 'gone are the days of rainbows/and gone are the nights of swinging from the stars'