This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Albert, he goes west
He crossed the vast indifferent deserts of Arizona
He had a psychotic episode on a dude ranch
That involved a bottle of ammonia
Henry, he went south and lost his way
Deep in the weeping forests of the vulva
He grew so wan, he grew so sick
He ended up in a bungalow sucking a revolver
The light upon your rainy streets
Offers many reflections
I won't be held responsible
For my actions
Bobby, he goes north, then he goes east
Then over to New Hampshire
Bobby is a cautious man
He walked into a Concord dive to drink a beer
Do you wanna dance?
Yeah, do you wanna move?
Yeah, do you wanna dance?
Do you wanna groove?
I said this world is full
Of endless abstractions
I won't be held responsible
For my actions
Me, I ain't going anywhere
Just sit and watch the sun come up, I like it here
Oh yeah, I watch the people go ticking past
Go hey hey hey, you know I gotta say I like it here
Alright
Sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Sha-la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Sha-la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Sha-la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
He crossed the vast indifferent deserts of Arizona
He had a psychotic episode on a dude ranch
That involved a bottle of ammonia
Henry, he went south and lost his way
Deep in the weeping forests of the vulva
He grew so wan, he grew so sick
He ended up in a bungalow sucking a revolver
The light upon your rainy streets
Offers many reflections
I won't be held responsible
For my actions
Bobby, he goes north, then he goes east
Then over to New Hampshire
Bobby is a cautious man
He walked into a Concord dive to drink a beer
Do you wanna dance?
Yeah, do you wanna move?
Yeah, do you wanna dance?
Do you wanna groove?
I said this world is full
Of endless abstractions
I won't be held responsible
For my actions
Me, I ain't going anywhere
Just sit and watch the sun come up, I like it here
Oh yeah, I watch the people go ticking past
Go hey hey hey, you know I gotta say I like it here
Alright
Sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Sha-la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Sha-la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Sha-la-la-la, sha la-la-la, sha la-la-la-la-la-la
Lyrics submitted by mutinyinheaven_x
Albert Goes West Lyrics as written by Nick Cave
Lyrics © Mute Song Limited
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Great version of a great song,
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WOO first post! :P Firstly, this is the best album Nick Cave has done XD Okay, I think it's about the aftermath of a relationship has become rocky, causing change in the character. "The light upon your rainy streets offers many reflections" could refer to the sadness of his girlfriend giving many opinions about him, and "I won't be held responsible for my actions," I think, gives his opinion of exactly that. Yet the characters, "Albert", "Henry", "Bobby" etc. are reffering to parts of him travelling, i.e. changing, and "Henry" who ended up "sucking a revolver" could mean parts of him that abuse others could have been completely changed; he works to eliminate them, in order to save his relationship. I don't know, I could be completely off the target and sorry it's so jerky and unclear :P.
I was thinking this song was about Marilyn Monroe, and Henry Miller, Bobby Kennedy, and Albert Einstein.
But then I realized she was married to ARTHUR Miller, not Henry, so much for that interpretation. Aside from that, though, it makes a lot of sense that way, Bobby Kennedy went to prep school in concord, and "cautiously" sat out the 1968 primary in New Hampshire, though having a beer in a dive in a state capital is certainly a election primary behaviour, ha.
Einstein did visit Arizona and he co-invented a refrigeration method using ammonia.
But who knows, it's nick cave, I don't wanna be inside his head, ha.
conduit, I think you're dead on with the interpretation that the three characters named in the song are infact different parts of a central character: the narrator. Take for example these lines from the second verse: "Henry, he went South and lost his way/Deep in the weeping forests/Of le vulva". The subtext here is fairly obvious; "Henry" is the narrator's lust and the rest quite clearly references the location and appearence of female genitalia. Wow, that sounded really clinical. Oh well, not to worry. You get what I mean ;)
Following previous comments.. Albert, going west, might represent pioneer approach in pursuit for the resolution of the psychic disorientation, including opiates. Which, if chronological order could be presumed, ended poorly, so south direction, described above, had been undertaken (logical choice, given the power of neglected libido after break up). And finally, safe option of cooling down (north) and going to the bar (east) to meet perspective new affairs. But that was all beforehand, right now he's happy with just where he is. Which is, of course, merely an abstraction in the endless pool, so he "won't be held responsible" for any of it...