This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
How the years have gone.
It's come to this.
A rose on his lapel, in the open coffin I'd give him a kiss.
I have to go up north to play at his funeral,
and his wife is there,
in some chapel she's picked out,
and there's not even an organ!
I have to play on some broken upright piano.
Listen to these low notes.
What a joke.
And you have to park and you couldn't even hear the ceremony in the cemetery,
because the noise from the traffic and construction is so terrible.
And I stood there in the slush,
and I walked along, very slowly,
to the tree by the turn
and I went in front of my mother and father and sister and husband's graves,
and looked over to the sun setting to the right.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
And I thought of myself.
And I thought of them,
in the cold hard ground.
You still can't believe!
You still can't believe!
I didn't believe it then,
and i don't believe it now.
I didn't believe it then,
and i don't believe it now.
I didn't believe it then and i don't believe it now.
But there it is.
Listen to this tune I'm playing for you now, kids.
Does it seem sad?
Does it remind you of when?
Shady grave,
come the summer it will be.
Shady grave,
come the summer it will be.
Well I can hear the cars just
a hundred feet behind.
And I smell the rock salt in the air.
And I know in my bones it isn't fair.
And the sun sets in the sleet to the side.
It's come to this.
A rose on his lapel, in the open coffin I'd give him a kiss.
I have to go up north to play at his funeral,
and his wife is there,
in some chapel she's picked out,
and there's not even an organ!
I have to play on some broken upright piano.
Listen to these low notes.
What a joke.
And you have to park and you couldn't even hear the ceremony in the cemetery,
because the noise from the traffic and construction is so terrible.
And I stood there in the slush,
and I walked along, very slowly,
to the tree by the turn
and I went in front of my mother and father and sister and husband's graves,
and looked over to the sun setting to the right.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
And I thought of myself.
And I thought of them,
in the cold hard ground.
You still can't believe!
You still can't believe!
I didn't believe it then,
and i don't believe it now.
I didn't believe it then,
and i don't believe it now.
I didn't believe it then and i don't believe it now.
But there it is.
Listen to this tune I'm playing for you now, kids.
Does it seem sad?
Does it remind you of when?
Shady grave,
come the summer it will be.
Shady grave,
come the summer it will be.
Well I can hear the cars just
a hundred feet behind.
And I smell the rock salt in the air.
And I know in my bones it isn't fair.
And the sun sets in the sleet to the side.
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having three close relatives burried during the last half year, i think i can tell what this song is about.
on one hand it tells about the lack of fairness in death and how you can not believe that these people never come back.
on the other hand it tells about the feeling that you start hating everybody and everything, thinking everyone who is not the close you are is a pathetic faker. you transfer your sadness into hate and project it on them.
the guy who plays the piano acts the way you think everyone arround you acts.
you think about the noise and the traffic and start to hate it too. you hate all the people in the world. they are alive and you hate them for beeing alive.
and you tell yourself that they are the reason you can't deal with the pain and everything is their fault.
i bet these are the same emotions that are in this music.