Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
and there was a booming above you
that night, black airplanes flew over the sea
and they were lowing and shifting like
beached whales
shelled snails
as you strained and you squinted to see
the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
you froze in your sand shoal
prayed for your poor soul
sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
and when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke
my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
then there was a silence you took to mean something:
mean, run, sing
for alive you will evermore be
and the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin'
has gone east
while you're left to explain them to me
released from their hairless and blind cavalry
with your hands in your pockets, stubbily running
to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning
well, what is this craziness? this crazy talking?
you caught some small death when you were sleepwalking
it was a dark dream, darlin', it's over
the firebreather is beneath the clover
beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever
a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
but I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever)
down to the swimminghole, where there grows bitter herb
that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here:
apply it gently
to the love you've lent me
while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze
and I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
gone treacly
nearly slowed to a stop in this heat
- frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
press on me: we are restless things
webs of seaweed are swaddling
you call upon the dusk
of the musk of a squid
shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened
smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
and when the fire moves away
fire moves away, son
why would you say
I was the last one?
scrape your knee; it is only skin
makes the sound of violins
when you cut my hair, and leave the birds the trimmings
I am the happiest woman among all women
and the shallow
water
stretches as far as I can see
knee-deep, trudging along
a seagull weeps; "so long"
I'm humming a threshing song
until the night is over
hold on!
hold on!
hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
I have got some business out at the edge of town
candy weighing both of my pockets down
'til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
(and knowing how the common-folk condemn
what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm
being a woman, being a woman)
but always up the mountainside you're clambering
groping blindly, hungry for anything:
picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this?
scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
little sister, he will be back again
I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin'
silently from all the blooming cherry trees
in tiny nooses, safe from everyone
- nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done
be a woman, be a woman!
though we felt the spray of the waves
we decided to stay 'til the tide rose too far
we weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are
and you know that we know what you are
awful atoll
- o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
bawl, bellow:
Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
toddle and roll;
teeth an impalpable bit of leather
while yarrow, heather and hollyhock
awkwardly molt along the shore
are you mine?
my heart?
mine anymore?
stay with me for awhile
that's an awfully real gun
I know life will lay you down
as the lightning has lately done
failing this, failing this,
follow me, my sweetest friend
to see what you anointed in pointing your gun there
lay it down! nice and slow!
there is nowhere to go, save up
up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream
at the sight of my baby, out back:
back on the patio watching the bats bring night in
- while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white
wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
last week our picture window produced a half-word
heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird
we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
and pant and labour over every intake
I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace
then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
then in my hot hand
she slumped her sick weight
we tramped through the poison oak
heartbroke and inchoate
the dogs were snapping
so you cuffed their collars
while I climbed the tree-house
then how I hollered!
cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew
(while, back in the world that moves, often
according to the hoarding of these clues
dogs still run roughly around
little tufts of finch-down)
the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland
but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless
while down in the lowlands the crops are all coming;
we have everything
life is thundering blissful towards death
in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness
you stopped by, I was all alive
in my doorway, we shucked and jived
and when you wept, I was gone:
see, I got gone when I got wise
but I can't with certainty say we survived
then down, and down
and down, and down
and down, and deeper
stoke without sound
the blameless flames
you endless sleeper
through fire below, and fire above, and fire within
sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been
and when the fire moves away
fire moves away, son
why would you say
I was the last one?
all my bones they are gone, gone, gone
take my bones, I don't need none
cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on!
suck all day on a cherry stone
dig a little hole, not three inches round
spit your pit in the hole in the ground
weep upon the spot for the starving of me!
till up grow a fine young cherry tree
well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?
a little willow cabin to rest on your knee
what'll I do with a trinket such as this?
think of your woman, who's gone to the west
but I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!
then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
come across the desert with no shoes on!
I love you truly, or I love no-one
fire
moves
away
fire moves away, son
why would you say
I was the last one?
clear the room! there's a fire, a fire, a fire
get going, and I'm going to be right behind you
and if the love of a woman or two, dear,
couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do
is do, my darling, right by you
that night, black airplanes flew over the sea
and they were lowing and shifting like
beached whales
shelled snails
as you strained and you squinted to see
the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
you froze in your sand shoal
prayed for your poor soul
sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
and when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke
my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
then there was a silence you took to mean something:
mean, run, sing
for alive you will evermore be
and the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin'
has gone east
while you're left to explain them to me
released from their hairless and blind cavalry
with your hands in your pockets, stubbily running
to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning
well, what is this craziness? this crazy talking?
you caught some small death when you were sleepwalking
it was a dark dream, darlin', it's over
the firebreather is beneath the clover
beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever
a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
but I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever)
down to the swimminghole, where there grows bitter herb
that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here:
apply it gently
to the love you've lent me
while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze
and I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
gone treacly
nearly slowed to a stop in this heat
- frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
press on me: we are restless things
webs of seaweed are swaddling
you call upon the dusk
of the musk of a squid
shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened
smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
and when the fire moves away
fire moves away, son
why would you say
I was the last one?
scrape your knee; it is only skin
makes the sound of violins
when you cut my hair, and leave the birds the trimmings
I am the happiest woman among all women
and the shallow
water
stretches as far as I can see
knee-deep, trudging along
a seagull weeps; "so long"
I'm humming a threshing song
until the night is over
hold on!
hold on!
hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
I have got some business out at the edge of town
candy weighing both of my pockets down
'til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
(and knowing how the common-folk condemn
what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm
being a woman, being a woman)
but always up the mountainside you're clambering
groping blindly, hungry for anything:
picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this?
scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
little sister, he will be back again
I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin'
silently from all the blooming cherry trees
in tiny nooses, safe from everyone
- nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done
be a woman, be a woman!
though we felt the spray of the waves
we decided to stay 'til the tide rose too far
we weren't afraid, 'cause we know what you are
and you know that we know what you are
awful atoll
- o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
bawl, bellow:
Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
toddle and roll;
teeth an impalpable bit of leather
while yarrow, heather and hollyhock
awkwardly molt along the shore
are you mine?
my heart?
mine anymore?
stay with me for awhile
that's an awfully real gun
I know life will lay you down
as the lightning has lately done
failing this, failing this,
follow me, my sweetest friend
to see what you anointed in pointing your gun there
lay it down! nice and slow!
there is nowhere to go, save up
up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream
at the sight of my baby, out back:
back on the patio watching the bats bring night in
- while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white
wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
last week our picture window produced a half-word
heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird
we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
and pant and labour over every intake
I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace
then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
then in my hot hand
she slumped her sick weight
we tramped through the poison oak
heartbroke and inchoate
the dogs were snapping
so you cuffed their collars
while I climbed the tree-house
then how I hollered!
cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew
(while, back in the world that moves, often
according to the hoarding of these clues
dogs still run roughly around
little tufts of finch-down)
the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland
but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless
while down in the lowlands the crops are all coming;
we have everything
life is thundering blissful towards death
in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness
you stopped by, I was all alive
in my doorway, we shucked and jived
and when you wept, I was gone:
see, I got gone when I got wise
but I can't with certainty say we survived
then down, and down
and down, and down
and down, and deeper
stoke without sound
the blameless flames
you endless sleeper
through fire below, and fire above, and fire within
sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been
and when the fire moves away
fire moves away, son
why would you say
I was the last one?
all my bones they are gone, gone, gone
take my bones, I don't need none
cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on!
suck all day on a cherry stone
dig a little hole, not three inches round
spit your pit in the hole in the ground
weep upon the spot for the starving of me!
till up grow a fine young cherry tree
well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?
a little willow cabin to rest on your knee
what'll I do with a trinket such as this?
think of your woman, who's gone to the west
but I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed!
then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head
come across the desert with no shoes on!
I love you truly, or I love no-one
fire
moves
away
fire moves away, son
why would you say
I was the last one?
clear the room! there's a fire, a fire, a fire
get going, and I'm going to be right behind you
and if the love of a woman or two, dear,
couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do
is do, my darling, right by you
Lyrics submitted by do i run rare?
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Ministry
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Son Şansın - Şarkı Sözleri
Hayalperest
Hayalperest
This song seemingly tackles the methods of deception those who manipulate others use to get victims to follow their demands, as well as diverting attention away from important issues. They'll also use it as a means to convince people to hate or kill others by pretending acts of terrorism were committed by the enemy when the acts themselves were done by the masters of control to promote discrimination and hate. It also reinforces the idea that these manipulative forces operate in various locations, infiltrating everyday life without detection, and propagate any and everywhere.
In general, it highlights the danger of hidden agendas, manipulation, and distraction, serving as a critique of those who exploit chaos and confusion to control and gain power, depicting a cautionary tale against falling into their traps. It encourages us to question the narratives presented to us and remain vigilant against manipulation in various parts of society.
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
I haven't had a great deal of time yet to think about this song, so I don't have much of an accuratish interpretation. But early this year for school in English I read T. S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland', Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway' and Michael Cunningham's 'The Hours'. The storyline and emotion behind this song is I think not quite the same, but gosh, there are similarities... read them if you haven't, they are at least incredibly clever...
Anyway, as to the storyline, here is the raw first impression I have - probably in some things wrong, but just putting it out there. I will think about it more and post later, (nearly holidays!).
The first part is definitely a reference to war... a man standing under violent attack. The description is dreamlike, surreal, horrifying... everything is vivid and exaggerated. This, as well as the context, suggests that this is an image of a man who was in the war, but is now home... suffering post-traumatic flashbacks or such.
"Then there was a silence you took to mean something: mean, run, sing/ For alive you will evermore be/ And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin'/ Has gone east/ While you're left to explain them to me/ ...It was a dark dream, darlin', it's over/ the firebreather is beneath the clover... " - not only an incredibly powerful comment on mortality, these lines show the way his mental condition and memory of the past consumes him, and the way he now shares them with the speaker, the woman. "Clear the room! There's a fire, a fire, a fire..." shows the way this perception permeates his reality, and the song progresses to show how the woman has come into his life to comfort him and to help him forget... almost like a mother, but it's clearly a romantic relationship - "Fire... moves... away/ Fire moves away son/ Why would you say/ I was the last one?"
She goes out to find something that will heal him. There are lots of references in this part of the song... and much writing that just creates an image to emulate a feeling. It's so incredible. I like how she says "Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes/ I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!/ Smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened/ Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking" - this talks about the reason for the woman's attraction to him. She is enthralled by his story. It is tragic... the image of cutting open a fruit, death, to serve an eater, is profound. Maybe she is caught rowing along the river of his depth and his intensity... the fact that he needs her, and she needs him... fascinated by him, sorry for him?
"Scrape your knee; it is only skin/ Makes the sound of violins" starts to show the death in the situation. There is detachment from reality, a fascination with pain and brokenness brought on by the extreme pain of the situation. Perhaps it questions the way society views humanity... losing its sense of the value of life, people are thrown away as objects, 'threshed' by humanity. There is a verging insanity when you compare injury to music, as if the subject's experiences have made it so he is numb (though it torments him mentally and emotionally... there's the painful conflict...) and it suits the theme so wrought with the feeling of internal and actual death.
When it says "Knowing how the common-folk condemn/ What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm/ Being a woman, being a woman", this sheds more light on the nature of the relationship, but it is here that I'm hesitant to interpret for fear of being embarrassingly wrong. Anyway, if you've read Virginia Woolf's work, this reminds me a lot of Lucrezia Warren Smith: married to Septimus not because he loved her, but because he needed her as an 'anaesthetic'. Only the speaker here, I think, isn't married... she comforts him 'as a woman' and in so doing is condemned by society. But she does it to try to make him better. Also hesitant to use the label 'codependent', but it bears some similarities. No doubt if this is right there are some references in the song that I'm missing... and wouldn't like to explore besides. Anyway, that's just the impression of it in my reading... not going to psychoanalyse it...
Well, here's a stanza that fascinates me: "But always up the mountainside you're clambering/ Groping blindly, hungry for anything:/ Picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this?/ Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?" Sassafras is used as a painkiller, a stimulant and a medicine for various diseases. Sisyphus is, in Greek mythology, a king punished in the underworld by being set to roll a huge rock up a hill throughout eternity. This is the frustration and hopelessness of the situation... he can't recover, he's stuck and it's not his fault... and he's addicted to whatever will numb him further. It is sad. It is unfair. It is tragic.
The part with the spiders and the cherry trees... won't delve too deeply into that, but it is beautifully phrased and again illustrates death and hopelessness, the way the man is discarded.
"Are you mine?/ My heart?/ Mine anymore?"... it does affect the speaker deeply. She is committed to him, but it breaks her too... in joining with him, she enters his world. That's why - and here's something I'm not sure about, but anyway - I think she is overwhelmed and leaves him - "See, I got gone when I got wise/ But I can't with certainty say we survived". And then she comes back in the only ray of hope in the end "And if the love of a woman or two, dear,/ Couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do/ Is do, my darling, right by you" - recklessly facing the portrayed hopelessness of their reality by sticking with him. That seems to be her only answer: "We have everything/ Life is thundering blissful towards death..."
H'm, I can be really verbose. Sorry. I'll blame it on this being a long song :-) Skipping through bits to get to the point...
"Last week our picture window produced a half-word/ Heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird/ ...Said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace/ Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place/ ...Then how I hollered! cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two/ ...Then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew..." - this relates so strongly to the imagery in 'The Hours'. The reference to the wasteland a bit later on makes me think it could be intentional - even so, it fits thematically, incredibly well. An image of death, and ressurection... think on that a while, it's powerful and links to so many things. The same imagery is in this: "Take my bones, I don't need none/ Cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on!/ Suck all day on a cherry stone/ Dig a little hole, not three inches round/ Spit your pit in the hole in the ground/ Weep upon the spot for the starving of me!/ Till up grow a fine young cherry tree..." - death to bring life, but it's still wearying and terrible.
It's this kind of exploitation of people that has destroyed the man, and she is in the line of the damage. So she leaves. But she can't stay away, and she comes back to him. That's where the song ends. It's a mess, they're stuck in the middle of a war that is endless death that never seems to die in its own immortality - but they have each other....
So... anyway, I am not one to analyse the intention behind a work with haste and say that I am right. I don't want to read Joanna wrongly through her words, not knowing her personally, or the situation she wrote from. But looking at the text alone, I would say it's sybolic and deeply personal... a feeling relating to parts of her own relationship with somebody, which is encapsulated well in the metaphor, whether all parts of it are accurately linked to events in her life or not. It could relate to many things. If not in her life, someone who could relate to it would be a person in a relationship with someone who is broken, but she longs to make him better, he needs her, and it breaks her too but she can't leave - trying to take the blame off him. Or it could have nothing to do with a relationship, and be a narrative whose feeling relates to one Joanna had felt... maybe she was fascinated by the hopelessness or feeling of death, or yearning, or those things, and related it to something else.
Don't know. Haven't thought deeply enough to know, and haven't got enough background. But certainly it is a really human song. It stirs you, it's deep and the way it's musically executed is incredible. It does get you thinking... there is so much there...