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.
Wind out of Oklahoma this morning smelled like blood and smoke
And the crows discuss their future in the branches of their Louisiana live oak
The limbs are strong and heavy and its leaves are all aglow
And the branches brush the upper air but the roots reach down to where the bad people go
And what will I do with you?
Pink and blue
True gold
Nine days old
Nice new clothes on you and an old cardboard produce box for a cradle
I mashed some bananas in a coffee cup and I fed you there at the kitchen table
Crows outside complaining about the finer points of local politics
Strange wind all full of new smells, rust and fur and reception sticks
And what will I do with you?
Pink and blue
True gold
Nine days old
And the crows discuss their future in the branches of their Louisiana live oak
The limbs are strong and heavy and its leaves are all aglow
And the branches brush the upper air but the roots reach down to where the bad people go
And what will I do with you?
Pink and blue
True gold
Nine days old
Nice new clothes on you and an old cardboard produce box for a cradle
I mashed some bananas in a coffee cup and I fed you there at the kitchen table
Crows outside complaining about the finer points of local politics
Strange wind all full of new smells, rust and fur and reception sticks
And what will I do with you?
Pink and blue
True gold
Nine days old
Lyrics submitted by fuckedupdog, edited by Xamnam, recognizer, Eccentricity
Pink and Blue Lyrics as written by John Darnielle
Lyrics © PACIFIC ELECTRIC MUSIC
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In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
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"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
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This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
this is a song about a single father with no idea how to be a father, pink and blue are common colors to see babies wearing,
I love the parts with the crows and the tree, it symbolizes how society completely overlooks people in situations like the narrator. the tree is very healthy judging by the lyrics "strong and heavy branches, leaves all aglow" which just further contrasts with the narrator and his situation, feeding his baby mashed bananas, and using an old produce box for a cradle.
@thedreamlord Why do you think it is a father? Could also be a single mother. Certainly a person with a baby in pretty desperate circumstances.
OKC bombing interpretations feel a little forced to me, but there IS something very dark at the core of this song.
"cardboard produce box for a cradle" - mashed bananas in a coffee cup for an infant - "what will I do with you?" It all points to something awful, but it's conveyed sideways, in a lullaby.
I think the singer's wife - the baby's mother - died giving birth. The "nice new clothes" were probably a parting gift from the hospital, but the free formula samples didn't last very long, and he can't afford even basic baby furniture, and he doesn't know a damned thing about how to take care of a baby, and he's out of his mind with grief and sleep-deprivation - but also with love, for this tiny life that he's suddenly responsible for.
Darnielle is really good at this - hiding an enormous emotional payload in words and sounds that seem so simple - and I think this is one of his best.
i've been chewing on this song for the past week. i thought about how you wouldn't want to feed nine day old babies mashed bananas. so maybe the song is about just not knowing what to do with babies. then i thought about how maybe...the babies...are...monkies. baby monkies. to some zoos, that's as good as gold.
lol baby monkeys?? love it. unfortunately i don't quite think that's what it's about. unfortunately also, i do not know what it's about.
it really bothers me that you can't feed a nine old baby bananas. i mean, why would he say that? and what is this pink and blue business? is it pink and new baby but blue in the face?
@elodie Amusingly, at a benefit show to raise money to try to stop Amendment 1 in NC, JD said that the "bananas to a nine-day-old baby" was a line written off the cuff by a much younger JD who really knew nothing about babies, and didn't stop to think about the fact that a nine-day-old human baby would not be anywhere near eating solid food. He said that current day Dad JD looks back on that line and shakes his head. Everyone had a good chuckle, and then he played it.
could the colors have anything to do with the Husker Du song "pink turns to blue"?
Not to make it a drug thing, but...
i think its about a baby that was left on a door step the pink being the skin color and blue eyes
@lol21 pink skin color? Did they tattoo the baby's skin?
I think it is just about someone (most likely a single mother) who has a nine day old infant with absolutely no clue how to raise it, and nothing but a cardboard box for a cradle.
JD has said that this song is about parents abandoning their twin children.
The Oklahoma bombing reference is plain as day, don't know why people are trying to find deeper meaning there.