This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Up on the white veranda
She wears a necktie and a Panama hat
Her passport shows a face
From another time and place
She looks nothing like that
And all the remnants of her recent past
Are scattered in the wild wind
She walks across the marble floor
Where a voice from the gambling room is callin' her to come on in
She smiles, walks the other way
As the last ship sails and the moon fades away
From Black Diamond Bay
As the morning light breaks open, the Greek comes down
And he asks for a rope and a pen that will write
Pardon, monsieur, the desk clerk says
Carefully removes his fez
Am I hearing you right
And as the yellow fog is lifting
The Greek is quickly heading for the second floor
She passes him on the spiral staircase
Thinking he's the Soviet Ambassador
She starts to speak, but he walks away
As the storm clouds rise and the palm branches sway
On Black Diamond Bay
A soldier sits beneath the fan
Doing business with a tiny man who sells him a ring
Lightning strikes, the lights blow out
The desk clerk wakes and begins to shout
Can you see anything
Then the Greek appears on the second floor
In his bare feet with a rope around his neck
While a loser in the gambling room lights up a candle
Says, open up another deck
But the dealer says, attendez-vous, s'il vous plait
As the rain beats down and the cranes fly away
From Black Diamond Bay
The desk clerk heard the woman laugh
As he looked around the aftermath and the soldier got tough
He tried to grab the woman's hand
Said, here's a ring, it cost a grand
She said, that ain't enough
Then she ran upstairs to pack her bags
While a horse-drawn taxi waited at the curb
She passed the door that the Greek had locked
Where a handwritten sign read, do not disturb
She knocked upon it anyway
As the sun went down and the music did play
On Black Diamond Bay
I've got to talk to someone quick
But the Greek said, go away, and he kicked the chair to the floor
He hung there from the chandelier
She cried, help, there's danger near
Please open up the door
Then the volcano erupted
And the lava flowed down from the mountain high above
The soldier and the tiny man were crouched in the corner
Thinking of forbidden love
But the desk clerk said, it happens every day
As the stars fell down and the fields burned away
On Black Diamond Bay
As the island slowly sank
The loser finally broke the bank in the gambling room
The dealer said, it's too late now
You can take your money, but I don't know how
You'll spend it in the tomb
The tiny man bit the soldier's ear
As the floor caved in and the boiler in the basement blew
While she's out on the balcony, where a stranger tells her
My darling, je vous aime beaucoup
She sheds a tear and then begins to pray
As the fire burns on and the smoke drifts away
From Black Diamond Bay
I was sitting home alone one night in L.A.
Watching old Cronkite on the seven o'clock news
It seems there was an earthquake that
Left nothing but a Panama hat
And a pair of old Greek shoes
Didn't seem like much was happening
So I turned it off and went to grab another beer
Seems like every time you turn around
There's another hard-luck story that you're gonna hear
And there's really nothing anyone can say
And I never did plan to go anyway
To Black Diamond Bay
She wears a necktie and a Panama hat
Her passport shows a face
From another time and place
She looks nothing like that
And all the remnants of her recent past
Are scattered in the wild wind
She walks across the marble floor
Where a voice from the gambling room is callin' her to come on in
She smiles, walks the other way
As the last ship sails and the moon fades away
From Black Diamond Bay
As the morning light breaks open, the Greek comes down
And he asks for a rope and a pen that will write
Pardon, monsieur, the desk clerk says
Carefully removes his fez
Am I hearing you right
And as the yellow fog is lifting
The Greek is quickly heading for the second floor
She passes him on the spiral staircase
Thinking he's the Soviet Ambassador
She starts to speak, but he walks away
As the storm clouds rise and the palm branches sway
On Black Diamond Bay
A soldier sits beneath the fan
Doing business with a tiny man who sells him a ring
Lightning strikes, the lights blow out
The desk clerk wakes and begins to shout
Can you see anything
Then the Greek appears on the second floor
In his bare feet with a rope around his neck
While a loser in the gambling room lights up a candle
Says, open up another deck
But the dealer says, attendez-vous, s'il vous plait
As the rain beats down and the cranes fly away
From Black Diamond Bay
The desk clerk heard the woman laugh
As he looked around the aftermath and the soldier got tough
He tried to grab the woman's hand
Said, here's a ring, it cost a grand
She said, that ain't enough
Then she ran upstairs to pack her bags
While a horse-drawn taxi waited at the curb
She passed the door that the Greek had locked
Where a handwritten sign read, do not disturb
She knocked upon it anyway
As the sun went down and the music did play
On Black Diamond Bay
I've got to talk to someone quick
But the Greek said, go away, and he kicked the chair to the floor
He hung there from the chandelier
She cried, help, there's danger near
Please open up the door
Then the volcano erupted
And the lava flowed down from the mountain high above
The soldier and the tiny man were crouched in the corner
Thinking of forbidden love
But the desk clerk said, it happens every day
As the stars fell down and the fields burned away
On Black Diamond Bay
As the island slowly sank
The loser finally broke the bank in the gambling room
The dealer said, it's too late now
You can take your money, but I don't know how
You'll spend it in the tomb
The tiny man bit the soldier's ear
As the floor caved in and the boiler in the basement blew
While she's out on the balcony, where a stranger tells her
My darling, je vous aime beaucoup
She sheds a tear and then begins to pray
As the fire burns on and the smoke drifts away
From Black Diamond Bay
I was sitting home alone one night in L.A.
Watching old Cronkite on the seven o'clock news
It seems there was an earthquake that
Left nothing but a Panama hat
And a pair of old Greek shoes
Didn't seem like much was happening
So I turned it off and went to grab another beer
Seems like every time you turn around
There's another hard-luck story that you're gonna hear
And there's really nothing anyone can say
And I never did plan to go anyway
To Black Diamond Bay
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Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
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There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
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“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
In the second verse, I believe there is a reference to The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.
"And as the yellow fog is lifting,"
The "Love Song" concerns a man weighed down with regret and the knowledge that his cowardice in seeking love has cost him the experience of it. He has wasted his life in trivialities, in half-deserted streets, cheap hotels, "sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells," meaningless conversation, a hundred indecisions and visions and revisions before toast and tea. More than this, he passively accepts this waste, believing that his chance to change things has long passed.
"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet - and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid."
And at the close,
"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us and we drown."
In the poem, the yellow fog seems to represent the essence of lethargy and wastefulness, crawling through the streets, around the houses, pressing up against the windows. In Black Diamond Bay, the yellow fog is lifting. The earthquake is perhaps the "human voice" that wakes the characters in the song. And yes, they drown, but they are for once awake and alive and made painfully aware of how fruitless their lives have been up until this fatal point.
I think there is something in how the desk clerk and the dealer are merely there as passive observers and commentators on the actions of those around them. The woman is searching for something (we don't know what), the loser is trying to reverse his luck, the Greek is in a hurry to take his own life, and the soldier and the tiny man are doing business, on the cusp of succumbing to their desires.
"The desk clerk says, 'It happens every day."
The volcano has erupted, the mountains are streaming lava, the fields are on fire and even the stars are falling. The desk clerk could be saying this happens every day, which lends some mystery to the song, similar to that found in Hotel California by The Eagles. He could, of course, just as easily be referring to the homoerotic tension between the soldier and the tiny man. Either way, he comes across as unusually calm for someone about to meet his own demise.
In my opinion, the desk clerk (and possibly the dealer by extension) can be perhaps be compared to the eternal Footman in Eliot's poem. There is also a suggestion that he is the yellow fog itself, as he appears throughout the song in various states of drowsiness, confusion and general idleness. Similarly, the dealer has only two lines in the song, first instructing the dealer to wait, then later on informing him (somewhat ironically) that it is too late.
Of course, the themes of irony in Black Diamond Bay are also very strong. The woman rejects the loser and the soldier for their false love (the loser would not leave the gambling room for her, the soldier wants to buy her romance), tries to save the life of a man intent on dying, and ultimately finds true love only to have it thwarted by fate. The soldier chases after the woman up until the last moment, when he realizes (or simply must admit) that he desires something and someone else entirely. The Greek is in an awful hurry to kill himself, but moments after his death he would have died anyway. The loser breaks the bank as the island sinks into the sea, taking all the players in this tragic comedy along with it.
I think the narrator is another victim of the yellow fog. He sits alone, watching news that depresses him and drinking beer. All he sees of the Black Diamond Bay disaster is a hat, a pair of shoes and "nothing happening." I suppose the question is how much is happening in his own life? When will his earthquake come to shake him awake from his stupor? Just the same, will it come too late?