2 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
The Gallery Lyrics
My building's full of little holes with heads in
Staring at the street
They sometimes topple forwards
Then stick at one another
Passing freaks
They rarely speak and though I don't feed them
Still they keep their double (their quadruple) chins
Their garbage bins are emptied each day
By night waiting with lights off, their cats out
Their wives in
They're peeping!
They're peeping at the methylated man who spits in a can
Spreads his hands for silver
Pans for gutter gold
He mutters old forgotten songs his father taught him
Rolls on the floor
He rolls in alcoves
Gets caught in waterfalls down rotting walls
(He's bored)
My friends applaud, throw pennies and wait
Peeping from the gallery
Staring at the street
They sometimes topple forwards
Then stick at one another
Passing freaks
They rarely speak and though I don't feed them
Still they keep their double (their quadruple) chins
Their garbage bins are emptied each day
By night waiting with lights off, their cats out
Their wives in
They're peeping!
They're peeping at the methylated man who spits in a can
Spreads his hands for silver
Pans for gutter gold
He mutters old forgotten songs his father taught him
Rolls on the floor
He rolls in alcoves
Gets caught in waterfalls down rotting walls
(He's bored)
My friends applaud, throw pennies and wait
Peeping from the gallery
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
Beautifully written story of the strange people living in the same house/block of flats. The LPD’s have a lyrically similar song called “Wildlife Estate” on Malachai. Both are great.
My building's full of little holes with heads in (1) Staring at the street They sometimes topple forwards Then stick at one another Passing freaks They rarely speak and though I don't feed them Still they keep their double (their quadruple) chins (2) Their garbage bins are emptied each day By night waiting with lights off, their cats out Their wives in They're peeping!(3) They're peeping at the methylated man who spits in a can Spreads his hands for silver Pans for gutter gold He mutters old forgotten songs his father taught him Rolls on the floor He rolls in alcoves Gets caught in waterfalls down rotting walls (He's bored) (4) My friends applaud, throw pennies and wait (5) Peeping from the gallery. (6)
(1) little holes appear to be windows - the heads are the people living in the flats behind the windows. These people are all staring out of their windows and observing the life in their neigborhood along with the narrator of this song.
(2) These neighbors seem to be well fed, though the narrator says he doesn't feed them. The have garbage service too...
(3) T'would be an eerie scene, no? All the lights in the windows go out and multiple eyes, perhaps with binoculars, are being simultameous voyeurs...
(4) The object of their peeping seems at first to be a homeless drunkard. Methylated is the past tense of Methylate, which means to mix with methyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol, in return, is a colorless, toxic, flammable liquid, CH3OH, used as an antifreeze, a general solvent, a fuel, and a denaturant for ethyl alcohol. Also called carbinol, methyl alcohol, wood alcohol, wood spirits. Doesn't seem very healthy... Amongst this fellow's actions are "muttering old forgotten songs his father taught him", which is turned into "we're singing all the songs our father taught us" from "The Ocean Cried 'Blue Murder'" on 1991's Maria Dimension. It would seem that this fellow goes hungry and lives a life of boredom while the peepers watch as if it is a gallery of art, sitting fat in their flats and not doing a thing about it.
(5) Friends of the narrator throw pennies and applaud, trying at least to do that.
(6) This could indeed be linked well with "Wildlife Estate", which in turn has definite connections to "A Problem with the Natives" from Chemical Playschool 11. Also, "Window on the World" from "Malachi" seems to have similar overtones, this time using a television screen instead of a literal window.
Edward states this is about a scene out of his (bedroom?) window in "dear old Amsterdam" in a live intro.