The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Count of three,
everybody overdose
they’re coming with
forks and knives to eat us alive,
forks and knives.
Victims in
cannibalistic
human race
proprietors
dog eat dog
colonization,
dog eat dog.
We sluts, we have, fattened and ripened in these LA castles.
We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed
(stick ourselves with syringes and
scrape our lungs with dollar bills)
We sluts, we have, fattened and ripened in these LA castles.
We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed.
Nothing (this thing) anything (keep it on)
that fatted us calves would now feed on.
Nothing (this thing) anything (keep it on)
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
The soft parts of our lower backs.
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
The soft parts of our lower backs.
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
We were meant to each other.
We were meant to each other.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
We were meant to eat each other.
We were meant.
Have at me, have at me, have at me with your most primitive touch.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
We were meant to each other.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
Have at me, have at me, have at me with your most primitive touch.
Secretaries now make great lovers.
As do those, as do those, as do those we had never considered.
The sound of cracking bones shall be the music that plays us out.
The sound of cracking bones shall be the music that plays us out.
stick ourselves with syringes,
and scrape our lungs with dollar bills.
forge a roof that will hold us in and keep them out.
We sluts, we have fattened and ripened in these LA castles. We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed
everybody overdose
they’re coming with
forks and knives to eat us alive,
forks and knives.
Victims in
cannibalistic
human race
proprietors
dog eat dog
colonization,
dog eat dog.
We sluts, we have, fattened and ripened in these LA castles.
We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed
(stick ourselves with syringes and
scrape our lungs with dollar bills)
We sluts, we have, fattened and ripened in these LA castles.
We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed.
Nothing (this thing) anything (keep it on)
that fatted us calves would now feed on.
Nothing (this thing) anything (keep it on)
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
The soft parts of our lower backs.
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
The soft parts of our lower backs.
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
That fatted us calves would now feed on.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
We were meant to each other.
We were meant to each other.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
We were meant to eat each other.
We were meant.
Have at me, have at me, have at me with your most primitive touch.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
We were meant to each other.
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
Have at me, have at me, have at me with your most primitive touch.
Secretaries now make great lovers.
As do those, as do those, as do those we had never considered.
The sound of cracking bones shall be the music that plays us out.
The sound of cracking bones shall be the music that plays us out.
stick ourselves with syringes,
and scrape our lungs with dollar bills.
forge a roof that will hold us in and keep them out.
We sluts, we have fattened and ripened in these LA castles. We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed
Lyrics submitted by thegreatcreator
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In my opinion this song is, like many of you suggested, about society and its primary ills according to Dave (lyricist). I believe though it is more celebrity/MTV culture based than just society in general. I am going to go step by step with what I believe each part of the song means.
"Count of three, everybody overdose"
This is a sarcastic lash at our drug based culture; this is most likely pointed towards rock stars.
"They’re coming with forks and knives to eat us alive. Victims in cannibalistic human race proprietor’s dog eat dog colonization."
These lines seem to be doing two things. 1) they seem to be making the speaker (and possibly any one in agreement with him) out to be victims of this culture, and with this they also 2) describe the culture in a somewhat vividly horrible fashion, with the almost grimy comparisons of the culture to cannibalism and "dog eat dog" ways of life. This is kind of like the things we hear about Hollywood, like a fuck or be fucked sort of thing. Another way to put this is when you think about making it as a star in Hollywood, you often do whatever you can to make it to the top, no matter how many people you fuck over.
"We sluts, we have, fattened and ripened in these LA castles.
This is probably the key line to understanding the basic point of this song. The basic start of the line begins with what would seem to be a sardonic reference to whomever the speaker seems to be lashing out at. The interesting thing with this line though, is that it is spoken in the first person, which once more gives a sarcastic spin on the lyrics. Sluts are normally considered as women (are rarely men) that are more willing to partake in sexual promiscuity, and sex itself. The term fatten obviously wouldn’t refer to these celebrities in a physical sense, more or less a sense of fullness/satisfaction. Kind of like saying they have been fattened with the bullshit this life serves them to eat. The LA castles is the dead giveaway in this song though, because even though there are some rich kids in LA, most of these LA castles are owned by celebrities, including rock stars, actors/actresses, etc.
"We rust in the milk that we’ve been fed."
The line "we rust in the milk we’ve been fed" is just the speaker reinforcing his idea of these celebrities "dying" so to speak from the shit they willingly take in everyday. It’s much like the line depicting the sluts fattening.
"Stick ourselves with syringes and scrape our lungs with dollar bills."
The syringes comment in this line, is going back to the drug/possible rock star reference from the beginning of the song. The dollar bill comment is based more towards all celebrities lashing upon their rich lifestyles. I like to believe that the "scrape our lungs with dollar bills" line is referring to them being so rich that they breathe money, but it can be interpreted anyway I would assume.
“Nothing (this thing) anything (keep it on) that fattened us calves would now feed on. The soft parts of our lower backs.”
This part is hard to interpret because we are not presented with what Dave actually wrote down or meant to say, so the sentence is hard to piece together. But none the less I would assume this part of the song is making references to more willing intake of shit these celebrities digest daily, but the last line might make a reference to human weakness, or soft sides. But as stated before this part is very hard to interpret and I am not fully confident in my analysis, besides saying that it still refers to celebrities in a very negative sense.
“You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings. We were meant to eat each other.”
The obvious explanation for this is how celebrities and the MTV culture attempts to mix together the ideas of money and emotions, two ideas that the speaker says can not possibly coincide. I would then go into examples in our world that the speaker might be talking about, such as celebrity magazines that try and tell us how to act, more importantly how to feel. The speaker might also be referring to how celebrities are attracted and end up marrying those with money. This would be an indirect statement saying love is necessary for marriage, and then it would indirectly imply into what he is actually saying in the song which is “you cant buy love”.
The line “we were meant to eat each other” is difficult to directly interpret, but I will give you my own personal interpretation even though my thoughts are most likely very far off from the speakers. I think that yet again he is going into the sarcastic 1st person view like he did in the chorus (We sluts etc…). With this in mind, I would also like to think he is going back to the first stanza of the song when he refers to the celebrity’s actions and lifestyles as cannibalistic. He then with the line “we were meant to eat each other” is him saying (keep in mind he is talking as a celebrity in the 1st person) “Our type of people (celebrities) will do anything to make it to the top, no matter what we do. The place we are (Hollywood) has for the most part constructed this lifestyle of intense possible life-fucking competition in front of us. With this idea in mind, Hollywood is our god, and our god gave us a purpose. This purpose is to take out as many as we can to make it all the way, no matter how disgusting it can be, even if it comes across cannibalistic”. Again this is just my own personal take on it and I could very well be wrong. All I do know is it refers to the “make it to the top no matter what” mindset.
“Have at me with your most primitive touch. Secretaries now make great lovers. As do those we had never considered.”
These lines are a bit out of place in the song in a still flowing (lyrically speaking) way. They totally break off of the criticism of celebrities, and (to my belief) refers to the affects the celebrities actions, along with the MTV culture we take in day by day. “Have at me with your most primitive touch” I am almost certain is a reference to our primitive sexual instinct. Sex is a physical activity, and the “primitive touch” is our basic knowledge of what feels good (sex). The speaker saying “Have at me” along with the rest of the line to my opinion pretty much means “fuck me”. This again is what I would see as an affect that these celebrities have on our own lives, and it is with their “help” that we realize love and feelings don’t matter, and we should pursue a life of pleasure, or a life full of hedonistic qualities. This is why we end up having affairs, including (like the speaker says) sex with secretaries. The line “secretaries now make great lovers” is a general way of saying “Now that I have learned from this MTV culture what I should make out of my life, I can justify random sex or any other immoral and affair type flings I find myself in”. And lastly the line “As do those we had never considered” for the most part add onto the last line, saying “Before when I was questioning having an affair with my secretary I was feeling it wasn’t the right thing to do, but after learning from these celebrities not only can I fuck my secretary, I can fuck any other woman I never thought I would be able to, with this marriage/relationship holding me down”.
“The sound of cracking bones shall be the music that plays us out.”
This line is the speaker telling us that with this lifestyle, no matter who you are, celebrity, or every day person, death is what waits for us. No matter what stage we are on, the stage of our own personal lives, or the stage of Hollywood, the music that plays us out (which means in acting/plays/film terms, the music that plays as we exit the stage) is the inevitable sound of death. This is sort of a “Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard” (by Thomas Gray) type idea, which says no matter what life you lead, everyone will end up dead. He uses this idea best (to my consideration) in the line “The paths of glory lead to but the grave”. And yes for us ETID fans, Keith Buckley does use his own version of this line, his being “And the path of glory leads to no where but the grave”. But don’t worry; he wasn’t copying, simply referencing Thomas Gray. Keith Buckley references poets and poems in many of his songs, more seen in his earlier lyrics, because ETID’s first EP (Burial Plot Bidding War) and their first album (Last Night In Town, which I think is one of the greatest albums ever) where made when Buckley was still in college earning is multiple majors in English.
Sorry for that very off topic side note.
Anyway, technically the last line that hasn’t been used yet in the song is “forge a roof that will hold us in and keep them out.” This is used after the chorus “Stick ourselves with syringes. Scrape our lungs with dollar bills”. For the most part the “forge a roof” line is yet again said in the 1st person I would assume simply because the last two lines that logically connect to that line are both spoken in 1st person as the celebrities, just as they were before. But the meaning of the line is the celebrities/Hollywood saying we will make a house (possibly make a name or setting) for ourselves that they (the everyday viewers of the MTV culture) can see, and mimic if they choose, but they cannot enter.
Thank you for reading this ridiculously long song analysis. I will once more say that most of this is personal opinion, and I hope you all can see what I see, and hopefully we can find ourselves in agreement with the message of this song.
Great song by the way.
Fear before rules, all three albums kick ass in different ways.
-Beven
oooo...something off the new FBTMoF and im posting first. woo.
alright, mainly this song in my opinion of what it means
that we live in a society based off of hate, all tv tells us to do is to buy items to improve our life, but instead we can just look at ourselves, and see we are just fine.
I kind of agree with you.. but in another way I think (and this is just purely speculation) is about love. I get that from the lines: "You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings. We were meant to each other"
The title is from the Ebaum's World GI Joe Dubs.
Nice work Almost Never.
stick ourselves with syringes, and scrape our lungs with dollar bills. forge a roof that will hold us in and keep them out.
So are they saying Heroin and cocaine are the only escape from out represive society? If so sign me right up.
The first two paragraphs of the lyrics reminds me of 'lord of the flies' in the last part where the schoolboys started killing each other due to differences and distrust. maybe it's a social comment of the kind of society that we live in today - not just in literally killing each other, but also how competetive we all are, especially in the colonised part thanks to the phrase "dog eat dog". maybe these are the workers or the underdogs of society.
And then, the song goes on to a related issue from:
We sluts, we have, fattened and ripened in these LA castles.
Wihy did they use the word slut and castle? To me, slut connotates giving in to the whole give-it-to-me kind of lifestlye, immoral, free etc. As for castle, I think it supports the idea of the underdogs or the 'peasants' working in the 'dog eat dog' world for those who live in 'castles' - people in the upper class, people with status and power and who don't have to face the whole 'cannibalistic' (not literally) world out there. That's the first part of the song that I get.
I'm not sure about the second part, but at first I thought that they were talking about internet dating? I think overall, maybe FBtMoF is reinforcing their social comments on the kind of society that we live in - the idea of weddings, monogamy, love and divorce like:
Secretaries now make great lovers.
And lastly I think the whole repitition thing with the words:
Tou can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings.
Sounds like a march protest and that image is reinforced when you have other guys shouting the last two lines of that paragraph
xox
The title reminds me of metallica. I think this song is kinda fear before's stab at corporate america
You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings. You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings. We were meant to each other. We were meant to each other. You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings. You can’t buy love. You can’t sell feelings. We were meant to eat each other. We were meant.
hahaha...if yoou have the cd and read the lyrics it is not we were meant to eat each other the whole time listen carefully and it not we were meant each other
I think it sounds like we were meant to eat eachother... lol