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"
I got a woman
She rules my house with an iron fist
I got a woman
She rules my house with an iron fist
She screams out Jack the Ripper
Every time I try to give that girl a kiss
Oh well I got a woman
She strikes me down with a fist of lead
Oh well I got a woman
She strikes me down with a hand of lead
We bed in a bucket of butcher's knives
I awake with a hatchet hanging over my head
Well you know the story of the viper
It's long and lean with poison tooth
Oh well, you know the story of the viper
It's long, it's lean, it's got a poison tooth
Well they're hissing under the floorboards
Hanging down in bunches from my roof
I got a woman
She just hollers what she wants from where she's at
I got a woman
She just hollers what she wants from where she is
She screams out Jack the Ripper
Every time I try to give that girl a kiss
She rules my house with an iron fist
I got a woman
She rules my house with an iron fist
She screams out Jack the Ripper
Every time I try to give that girl a kiss
Oh well I got a woman
She strikes me down with a fist of lead
Oh well I got a woman
She strikes me down with a hand of lead
We bed in a bucket of butcher's knives
I awake with a hatchet hanging over my head
Well you know the story of the viper
It's long and lean with poison tooth
Oh well, you know the story of the viper
It's long, it's lean, it's got a poison tooth
Well they're hissing under the floorboards
Hanging down in bunches from my roof
I got a woman
She just hollers what she wants from where she's at
I got a woman
She just hollers what she wants from where she is
She screams out Jack the Ripper
Every time I try to give that girl a kiss
Lyrics submitted by Girgo, edited by Mellow_Harsher, smallwonderrobot, kenevil83, JudasDenied, JOWNATION
Jack the Ripper Lyrics as written by Nicholas Cave
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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this is the most furious sounding song i've ever heard
Agreed. Its almost frighteningly evocative of evil and despair.
Ergo, before you move in with her, make sure she's more than just "nice and kind". Especially if she needs your attention badly (i.e. keeps saying so). After a while, we all want more receiving and less giving... For true love, there'll always be great songs around :)
One of the best songs dealing with a toxic relationship. They've deteriorated to the point that they don't touch or kiss and the woman is at least psychologically abusive and may be physically abusive as well. She's definitely a bully. It appears from the singer's tone that the man in the story is getting increasingly angry and frustrated with the situation.
I agree, is one of the finest Cave songs. One interpretation which comes to my mind is based on the title. Why "Jack The Ripper"? Is it just because a nerdy joke inside of this song? You can say that, but what if this is about THE Jack the Ripper? He himself is the narrator and angry about one of his victims which fits back while he's torturing her. And she fights back with style, with anger and aggression like he himself has. So I like both interpretations, the one with that real ugly partnership, and mine here, the worldview from the madman's head.
Because this song is from the narrators perspective, I think the narrator is trying to justify his actions.