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The Fizzy and the Still Lyrics
Sunday morning, here we are,
The boy's come home,
Not quite the mjovie star.
He's been in Hollywood,
The boy's come home,
The boy's done good.
He says she asked to high a price,
Neglecting to declare,
What sits between them there on ice,
Chilled, with the fizzy and the still.
He tried but didn't make it there.
"It's not for me,
It's not for me."
Sunday papers, here we are.
The boy's come home,
The boy's come home.
The boy's come home,
Not quite the mjovie star.
The boy's come home,
The boy's done good.
Neglecting to declare,
What sits between them there on ice,
Chilled, with the fizzy and the still.
He tried but didn't make it there.
It's not for me."
The boy's come home,
The boy's come home.
Song Info
Submitted by
bars.of.a.rhyme On Sep 27, 2007
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It’s a song about his brother, David Knopfler, who left Dire Straits for a quieter, less glanorous career.
Mark's narrator seems to be Mom & Dad.
Son's dream failed. "boy's done good" is an interesting line in the context: the son admitted defeat, but parents lost no respect for him.
For my ears, the rest of the details in the song are not important. Song is about Mom & Dad's reaction.
to add to my last post: I'm not sure you'll see the parent's reaction in the lyrics so much as how they are song, and how the piece is played.
Fizzy and still are two types of water - carbonated and non-carbonated. Common terms used in the UK.
In this song, it represents the image of posh Hollywood, where you get two types of water on ice and all your other whims catered to. Now, to go through the song:
Son coming home to his parents' house. They are ordinary folk (from the way they speak). The son didn't quite make it as a movie star, but did fine there.
Everything is back to the normal, relaxed pace of life back home. The family is back together.
What is this song about? I have no idea, but would love to hear some interpretations.
Fizzy (sparkling) and still (non-sparkling) are the two types of bottled water. I think this is here used to symbolize a failed relationship between two very different personalities - it is implied that the girl is a Hollywood actress.
"LA without a map" is a great movie with this theme; sometimes the prize is not worth the price.
There is a sense of defeat in the narration, an intense and exciting lifestyle is not for everybody - yet the boy may in fact have "done good", going back to core basic values instead.
The narration may be interpreted as a comparison of the mundane (visiting his parents) with the lost fantasy - and the grieving of this loss.
Not sure I really want to get into this because as someone once said,'talking about music is like dancing about architecture' or words to that affect. However, I do think that " the rest of the details in the song" ARE important. After all, they contain the title. What sits between them there on ice? What is he neglecting to declare? Its the central theme of the piece. It's chilled. It's fizzy and still. I sounds like booze to me. And if its not literally a drinking problem, then it is a representation of his own faults. Is it...
Not sure I really want to get into this because as someone once said,'talking about music is like dancing about architecture' or words to that affect. However, I do think that " the rest of the details in the song" ARE important. After all, they contain the title. What sits between them there on ice? What is he neglecting to declare? Its the central theme of the piece. It's chilled. It's fizzy and still. I sounds like booze to me. And if its not literally a drinking problem, then it is a representation of his own faults. Is it really not for him? Is it really too high a price? Or was it a failure to defeat his own demons? That alone is a lot from so few lyrics but that's the beauty of the art.
How about this? It's a song about a newspaper story, with accompanying photo, that Knopfler was reading one Sunday morning. It was an interview with a Brit who'd gone over the Hollywood and had now come back. The storyline was that he'd done well, but Hollywood had asked too high a price of him. It wasn't for him because he wasn't cut out for a life of fame. But there's chilled bottles of still and fizzy water sitting on the table between him and the interviewer, a symbol of the perks associated with the media attention that, even if he won't admit it to the interviewer, he really does crave. So it's not that he couldn't deal with the lifestyle, as he's telling the interviewer. The real reason he's back is simply that "he tried but didn't make it there".
There's something that I see in the song that no one else has mentioned, so I'll mention it here. The song starts out with an optimistic tone. "The boy's come home,..the boy's done good". But he hasn't done good. The parents apparently arranged to meet their "movie star" son at what sounds like a relatively posh brunch spot, excited to hear the news of hit success in hollywood.
...only he hasn't really succeeded.
Hollywood asks too high a price, and as they sit there, listening to his account of his non-success, because "she asks too high a price", both him and his parents are awkwardly aware of what sits between them there on ice,...between the fizzy water and the still water. It's the champagne, of course. But there is no reason to open it, given the report from the son, and so it sits there, unopened.
Notice at the end of the song, where the lyric is repeated "The boy's come home.......", but with the words "the boy's done good" conspicuously missing.
It's a song of a disspointing meeting between the hopeful parents and the son who has returned from Hollywood more or less empty handed, and unsuccessful.
At least that's how I see it. :-)
I think there may be an allusion to alcoholism in the lyrics.
The parent/narrator is sitting with the newly returned son at a table with booze on it, on a Sunday morning.
There might be a drinking problem passing from one generation to the next one, and the parent defeatedly realizes that the son's "too high a price" explanation fails to acknowledge the apparent truth - that he failed because he couldn't get his act together.
My two cents, anywhizz...
As an aside, I love the way Mark builds this entire song around what is essentially an unmoving tableau, just the snapshot of a moment. He describes a single scene and lets the listener fill in the background, both in the visual and chronological sense. That's top-notch storytelling skills right there, from a guy who gets most of his accolades as a guitar hero.
As an aside, I love the way Mark builds this entire song around what is essentially an unmoving tableau, just the snapshot of a moment. He describes a single scene and lets the listener fill in the background, both in the visual and chronological sense. That's top-notch storytelling skills right there, from a guy who gets most of his accolades as a guitar hero.
It's a testament to the basic truths that Mark Knopfler is able to touch in his marvelously constructed lyrics ways they can be interpreted in ways personal to listeners, as common tropes, and as his autobiographical notes, and all of them hold truths for us listeners. That these lyrics are strung on his beautiful music and musicianship, what a magnificent gift.