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.
Daggers of moonlight
Murder the sheets
And the stink of a four dollar room
And Daddy's gone a hunting
For a dime bag schoolboy
Tied up with a yellow balloon
So hush little baby, Daddy must go
I cover you up with a blanket of snow
By the time I make Jersey
You'll be in heaven
In a pretty blue shoe box I know
So sing a song of ten grand
With a pocket full of dough
And I can't take you to Baltimore
Wake God up in Heaven
Have him look down below
There's a little lost angel
Blooming in the snow
Murder the sheets
And the stink of a four dollar room
And Daddy's gone a hunting
For a dime bag schoolboy
Tied up with a yellow balloon
So hush little baby, Daddy must go
I cover you up with a blanket of snow
By the time I make Jersey
You'll be in heaven
In a pretty blue shoe box I know
So sing a song of ten grand
With a pocket full of dough
And I can't take you to Baltimore
Wake God up in Heaven
Have him look down below
There's a little lost angel
Blooming in the snow
Lyrics submitted by morris13
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
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.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
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.
American Town
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran shares a short story of reconnecting with an old flame on “American Town.” The track is about a holiday Ed Sheeran spends with his countrywoman who resides in America. The two are back together after a long period apart, and get around to enjoying a bunch of fun activities while rekindling the flames of their romance.
This is a very sad song. I think it's about a father singing to his murdered son, he buried the body (by himself or a funeral) and he's going after the murder.
This is the saddest damn song of all time.
The lyrics aren't right. It's: For a dime bag of schoolboy Tied up with a yellow balloon
So he is not hunting for a person. He is a drug addict looking for a dimebag of cocaine (schoolboy is slang for coke) Balloons are also used to contain illegal narcotics.
I can only guess about the rest of the song. Maybe in his drug induced state he accidently killed his son (downed in bath tub, starved, etc)
And I agree. It's one of the saddest song ever. Equally sad is The Tragically Hip's Fiddler's Green.
Maybe when he wrote it he was thinking about a hitman who goes to New York City to murder a young drug dealer who fell out of line with a drug lord, or something like that - in that case maybe going out for a dime bag means the hitman is going to buy drugs from the dealer in order to get close and then do the hit - if so - then going out for a 'dime bag of schoolboy' seems to have a secondary allusion to the dealer himself. That just leaves 'pretty blue shoe box' which maybe is a body bag, city-morgue coffin, city-morgue hearse, ambulance, etc.. None which seem to quite fit "pretty blue shoe box" too well.. Seems like there are allusions to him being the father of the dealer - but seems more to me like it's just an allusion to the age difference - not to actual blood relation..
Another Tom Waits murder ballad. With murder foreshadowed in the first lines, the drug-addicted, drug-dealing father first leaves his baby alone in a hotel room while he goes out to score. Then he leaves the baby to die out in the snow since you obviously can't take a baby along to a 10-grand drug deal in Baltimore. Chilling, not the least because of how sweetly it's sung.