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.
One hand on this wily comet
Take a drink just to give me some weight
Some uber-man I'd make
I'm barely a vapor
They shone a chlorine light on
A host of individual sins
Let's carve my aging face off
Fetch us a knife
Start with my eyes
Down so the lines
Form a grimacing smile
Close your eyes to corral a virtue
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard
To cement a failure
We can blow on our thumbs and posture
But the lonely are such delicate things
The wind from a wasp could blow them
Into the sea
With stones on their feet
Lost to the light and the loving we need
Still to come
The worst part and you know it
There is a numbness
In your heart and it's growing
With burnt sage and a forest of bygones
I click my heels
Get the devils in line
A list of things I could lay the blame on
Might give me a way out
But with each turn
It's this front and center
Like a dart stuck square in your eye
Every post you can hitch your faith on
Is a pie in the sky
Chock full of lies
A tool we devise
To make sinking stones fly
And still to come
The worst part and you know it
There is a numbness
In your heart and it's growing
Take a drink just to give me some weight
Some uber-man I'd make
I'm barely a vapor
They shone a chlorine light on
A host of individual sins
Let's carve my aging face off
Fetch us a knife
Start with my eyes
Down so the lines
Form a grimacing smile
Close your eyes to corral a virtue
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard
To cement a failure
We can blow on our thumbs and posture
But the lonely are such delicate things
The wind from a wasp could blow them
Into the sea
With stones on their feet
Lost to the light and the loving we need
Still to come
The worst part and you know it
There is a numbness
In your heart and it's growing
With burnt sage and a forest of bygones
I click my heels
Get the devils in line
A list of things I could lay the blame on
Might give me a way out
But with each turn
It's this front and center
Like a dart stuck square in your eye
Every post you can hitch your faith on
Is a pie in the sky
Chock full of lies
A tool we devise
To make sinking stones fly
And still to come
The worst part and you know it
There is a numbness
In your heart and it's growing
Lyrics submitted by heyheyhey111, edited by stainlesspork
A Comet Appears Lyrics as written by James Mercer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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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.
So, as our protagonist awakes to a grey morning, complete with birds chirping, he has to reflect on what he has learned from 'wincing the night away.' He has realized what it feels like to fully accept and understand nietzsche's concept of the ubermensch, in this song cleverly written as uber-man.
The boy realizes his naivete, and is lost, trying to summon up something good in himself, a forced smile, that will make this bitter dream seem better.
He learns that it is naive to try to convince someone else, (in the specific the girl that has been discussed throughout the album) about the lack of an afterlife or faith in humanity, because people are so easily lost and drown by the weight of these thoughts. ("The wind from a wasp could blow them into the sea...")
No matter what though, its stuck in his head, in front of him, that religion is man made, "Every post you can hitch your faith on is a pie in the sky, chock full of lies, a tool we devise to make sinking stones fly." He has lost a faith that there is a purpose in life, and a numbness to it all is growing.
This album is a description of what happens when we start to think about the realities of life, and the grim thoughts that ensue. There are ways to continue living life, but the boy we have followed throughout this album is unsure what it is he is supposed to do next.
The fact that 'the shins' can produce music that addresses things that we hope not to think about is eerily wonderful. We wonder if other people have had these thoughts as well, and here is a springboard to talk about them. It may not be something you wish to think about, but the shins have painted a beautifully dark picture that was only previously addressed in their songs like "your algebra" and "sphagnum esplanade."
great post and extrapolation of the meaning.. thx
Check out youtube.com/watch for an amazing live version
I think that's a really good post, but I disagree with some small parts of it.<br /> <br /> I don't think our protagonist is writing as an uberman or has fully accepted Nietzsche. The "some uberman I'd make" indicates that it's not quite working for him. And I don't think the "pie in the sky" line really is directed at religion, alone. I don't think it was particularly hard for our protagonist to do away with religion as Nietzsche did. But Nietzsche was very concerned with, after that, avoiding the descent into nihilism. That is what his famous "abyss" quote is about. Nietzsche certainly struggled with the abyss of nihilism, but his philosophy purportedly offers a way out of or around the abyss -- a way to meaning in life or a way to create meaning. But a lot of Nietzsche readers are not convinced. Neither was our protagonist. The meaning that Nietzsche offers is a pie in the sky, too. The protagonist wishes that he could find solace in such a philosophy, that he could be an ubermensch creating meaning, but he is unable. He is unable to escape the numbness of nihilism. The protagonist was never really sold on religion, but now he has realize that its replacements are pies in the sky as well. The "worst part and you know it," the truth, is that life really is crushingly meaningless. We continue on, but we know that in the backs of our minds.