Stoney End

cradle me .. mama cradle me again

my god! what other composer of pop tunes ever came up with such simple but weighty lyrics???

Laura Nyro wrote this song. about her struggle with Lesbianism. She married but her marriage disolved.. her conflicting feelings and passions raged inside her soul.. She was very cose to her mother,.. when faced with this dilemma she wanted to feel secure in her mothers arms again and start all over again.. She ws a good person she was born from love, and raised on the good book Jesus..She did not want to go down the stoney end. In Biblical times women were stoned when they did not conform.

The title is explained in the first two lines. The “end” is described in the first line and the “Stone” in the second Continuing, the good book shows the mother brought the narrator up in an acceptable manner, but the young girl was clever and morally rebellious.

The chorus shows the girl is on the crux of a change of life. Some great difficulty is there to be dealt with. The mother who was rebelled at is being asked for help. Being asked for emotional comfort. Maybe it is a bit whiney.

Winsome Johnny enters the scene. She was in first love with him but he was a day tripper. He not only stopped loving her, he went away, or parted. Here the sun rising is an artful way of showing the chorus refers to another morning. The chorus grabs now and we share some of the pain of this poor girl being treated with such low regard. Sometimes a girl needs mama's hug.

The third verse is not about weather, but her life. Forecast refers to fate, plans, or expectations. Not just the “sky” but her entire life is interrupted. Broken thunder is such a poetic mismatch because thunder sound is not broke as it is natural. The sound her BROKEN life makes is thunder. Whiney no more, she is raging, She will handle coming to the same mine destiny as her mother, with courage.

Chorus now is her asking forgiveness from her mother. The sad circle of life.Both trapped in the same destiny.

Hmm, the first line's missing from this one too which should be: "I was born from love."

I heard that some lines were cut out of this song for being "too controversial." I wish I could hear the original version, but it's still a fantastic song and definitely gets its point across all the same.

I saw the performance of this song with its original lyrics (above) on the 2012 Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction of Laura Nyro - with an excellent review of her professional life (although it left out the lesbianism). God, I can't believe how I cried like a baby (and still do) when it's full weight came crashing down on me. I was a very faithful Christian for most of my life until "losing my religion" about the time I saw the performance. In fact I had just sent the letter requesting my excommunication the week before.

In response to the previous comments, remember Laura was barely 19 years old when she recorded this song on her first album in 1966 (released in '67). I don't know when she wrote it, but she was 17 (or younger) when she wrote "And When I Die"... which already showed great depth of thought by the time "Stoney End" was written and/or recorded by her, then others.

It took me until my 55th year to begin to see or understand really what she did before she was 20 ("I was raised on the Good Book Jesus / Till I read between the lines") .. and what a long & painful process it was for me. How did she do it? The only thing, for me, that compared to that was Ian Anderson (same age) with Jethro Tull on "Aqualung"... which was recorded almost 5 years later.

I don't fault my parents & the generations before them for bringing me up as such... it was a process & labor of love for them based on all they were taught & knew at the time. Yet, how I questioned my own mother's sanity when I saw go through this process! God, how I wish (like in the lyrics) that I could be cradled again by my mother in the innocence of my youth before the learning & realizations of my adulthood.

I did label this as a "Song Comparison", didn't I? Rather than elaborate this more with my sentiments or analysis, the best I feel I can do is to tie it in with my comments on Ian Anderson's "Wind Up". I feel they dovetail nicely, his a great compliment to hers. Here's the link: http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/45570/

Thank God for her pure genius & talent - and the many more songs she wrote of equal quality & depth.

Lesbianism was held the same as drunkards, druggies and prostitutes in those days. Laura was expressing the very common terror and fear young women felt about coming out and the fact that they could be wrecking their lives (hence the stoney end) This song describes how hard it was to come out when you were just an everyday person like all the other young women except you were a lesbian. Ask older women from that era how hard it was to get promoted in their jobs, if it was known they were lesbian, it was not just men who face discrimination.

Ok, I think she was given in to lustful thoughts and feelings and read this also between the lines of the Bible. She met a man or woman that she thought loved her but then sexually ravaged her and she wants to return to the innocence of being cradled by her Mother.

Come on everyone. This is about a girl who\'s about to end her life. "I don\'t belive I want to see the morning"........no one seems to talk about that...

There are a few reasonable interpretations of "stoney end." As someone here points out, it could be a reference to the mine her mother worked. In which case the chorus would perhaps mean she never wanted to follow her mother into the mine.

Someone elsewhere suggested it could mean she didn't want to be stoned as a sinner, which is satisfyingly literal. Another suggested that she was talking about being baptized in a river, since they often are have ringed with stones. I had also thought of death, since people are put into cemetaries full of stone monuments.

I don't want to see the morning sounds like suicidal ideation, or at least extreme despair.

My current theory, FWIW, is this: She got knocked up, sees her life proceeding just as her mother's had, leading her to work the mines to support her child, and she'd rather be dead. She wishes she could just return to childhood and the cradle and relive her life making better choices this time.

First, comments on the other interpretations. I wouldn't jump to concluding it is about dealing with bisexuality or lesbianism, but that possibility is there in that the song is about disappointed with an intimate relationship with a young man. The other is the idea that her mother is a mine-worker, actually working underground in a coal mine, seems to be a bit too literal.

Still, a skillful great song with deliberate lyrics that allows the listener to form several meanings

First the questions: What or where is the Stoney End? What does she say happened? Why doesn't she want to see the morning? Why does she want to be held like a baby by her mother- 'Mama cradle me again?'

As for context: songwriters don't have to write directly about their own experiences but we do know that Laura Nyro wrote Stoney End before she turned 18. We can look at the story as being told from a young woman's, age 15-17, perspective.

That said- Here is my interpretation. It is a story of a young woman' first love and sexual experience, and her emotions and disappointment about it. She is angry, emotionally hurt, dismissive of the boy, but is also being hard on herself using societal and religious mores. She seeks the comfort of her mother to make it all right- to go back to being a child but she knows that there is no turning back she has to move on.

The young woman was raised in the church 'on the Good Book Jesus' and knows the strict sexual code and is aware of the Old Testament biblical punishment of stoning for sexual intercourse outside of marriage. But she has 'read between the lines' and recently moved past the religious framework she had been taught. The Stoney End is the catch-all term for the fall from grace- the collage of religious/purity/virginity/marriage views that had been taught to her and was recently important to her. At one point in her young life, she didn't think that she would ever be at the Stoney End, but now she is.

We don't know much about her mother but only that this child had been 'born in love'. I tend to take this line as that she the child was born without sin, but could also mean that her mother had been successful in finding a loving marriage partner something the young woman would want to emulate. However, the next line 'her poor mother worked the mines' suggests a realization that there is more to her mother's story. 'Working the mines' besides being the rhyme for 'between the lines' is probably not meaning that her mother was a poor, underground coal miner, but instead starting poor, her mother worked hard 'to find a successful mate' -so not specifically the connotation of 'a gold digger', but that her mother was successful in finding a good, golden, mate. and her daughter was then 'born in love.' We know that the boy in this song is not going to be this young woman's mate, but a teaching experience of regret. The young woman does not know yet what will come out of this night- a pregnancy?

The young woman's whirlwind of realization and reflection suggests that her mother might have had similar experiences that the daughter never knew of. Her mother did not stumble upon a bonanza, but instead 'worked the mines' implying that she might too, have had several relationships before finding her mate.

The sunny morning in the forecast is coming, but the young woman isn't ready for it. Everything is 'not okay', it won't be immediately all bright and sunny as is nothing happened. She is still angry and hurt and is working it through and what it means. She wants her mother's comfort and wishes she might be a child again. She knows that wish is impossible. She sees herself in a new light, berates, and steels herself. 'Never mind the forecast 'cause the sky has lost control, 'cause the furies and the broken thunders come to match my raging soul.' The musical lift and emphasis when singing 'come to match my raging soul' implies she, through her tears and anger, is heading in a new direction. Yet still, a good cry and hugs from her loving mother will still help.