Miles Davis and the Cool

Miles Davis & The Cool is the actual name of the song not Miles & The Cool

So, here's this:

I think Miles Davis was the sound that these kids were listening to in their youth. The Jazz musician, by say 1959, had been well into his career. So to hear Miles Davis playing on a record or "on grandmama's radio" would bring back a flood of memories and nostalgia about this person (girl) who has wandered from him as they have grown older. "My have the years of our youth passed on" seems to mean that they continued a relationship of some kind into the future though, as predicted, she wandered.

The album actually deals quite heavily with concepts of memories/nostalgia, among others, but also abandonment. The yearning for this person to return leads him to plead for her "not take too long to come home." And in Great Expectations we see something similar when he sings "I saw tail lights last night in a dream abut my ex-wife." He has been left again, perhaps by the same person. In the '59 sound, he is left alone yet again, and permanently, by someone dieing in a car accident. I still have to look further into other songs to see this particular theme pop up.

Hmm...

...I'm actually starting to think that the "someone" in each case is all the same person, perhaps stretching across the album as a whole. In this song, it is his child hood friend, who he mentions in The '59 Sound, as the person he "knows 'cause we were kids and we used to hang." Only to grow up to become his lover or spouse and be the leaving "ex-wife" mentioned in Great Expectatoins. She is the one who dies in a car crash, going "down, down, down, from [her] youth to the ground." And she plagues him in his dreams causing him to "wake up sweating in my room." She is to forever be the recipient of the singer's longing who hopefully, and pitifully, leaves the floodlight on as a beacon for her return.

I love this song. If I had to pick one favorite song from these guys, it'd probably be this one.

I really like the little story it tells... or the one I imagine when I hear it, anyway. I see it from the POV of this high-school age guy, probably shy and unpopular. He likes this girl but has always been too afraid to say anything to her all throughout high school. I imagine this taking place during the spring, they're seniors now, graduation is quickly approaching. It's now or never. So he goes to her house late at night. He stands under her bedroom window, looks up. He takes a deep breath, finds a stone, and hopes or prays or wishes that this will work. The stone hits the window and he talks her into coming out with him. She puts on a red dress, climbs out of her bedroom window, and they run out into the night to dance and have fun before they graduate and have to become responsible adults.

Alternatively, the whole middle part of the song -- "Honey, put on your red dress" to "So I found me a stone" -- could be him imagining the best possible scenario, and then he throws the rock at her window. And we don't know how it turns out for him.

In any case... this song just makes me feel hopeful. It's weird. It says to me "Have hope. Be brave. Throw a stone. You don't know how it could turn out. It could turn out great."

And the chorus... "So don't wait too long to come home. My, how the years and our youth pass on. Don't wait too long to come home, I will leave the front light on. The night is our own... don't wait too long." kind of reinforces this idea that I have. Don't wait too long, don't wait for later, do it now, do it while we're young, son.

So there's my $.02. =]

The first line of the fourth verse is a reference to Otis Redding ('Mr. Pitiful' and 'I Can't Turn You Loose' are two of his most famous songs), which would tie in to the idea of music-fueled nostalgia for their youth...does anyone see any other references like that in this song?

There are the lines "there's just something about the moon" and "you move like a dream I had", which could connect to 'Moon Dreams' and 'Darn that Dream' off of Birth of the Cool, but that's kind of tenuous. I don't see anything else as obvious as the Otis Redding thing, but I could be missing something.

"Your daddy's aim is true" is probably a reference to Elvis Costello's My Aim is True. The rest of the lyric borrows heavily from Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)", when Bruce sings "Now I know your mama she don't like me 'cause I play in a rock and roll band/And I know your daddy he don't dig me but he never did understand". Also, "we might always be blue" could be in reference to Miles's classic Kind of Blue.

this song is great. this whole album took me a couple listens to get into, but this band can really do no wrong.

i think in the first verse is "lay a kiss on this stone." and i think it's "so i got up my nerve and found me a stone, with a flick of the wrist and then turn of the key you'll just fall in my arms."

this song has a great vibe. it seems it's about kids falling in love and sneaking out and just growing up in general. "down, down, down from our youth to the ground"--climbing out the window, growing up.

Yeah it's definately "stone" and not "storm" in both verses. Hence the "toss it upside your window" line that follows in the first one

And I think it's just "I have the years that our youth pass on". Or something like that, but he definately says "I" and not "My", and he definately says "that" instead of "of"

But yeah this song rules. I always interpreted the "down down down from our youth to the ground" line as a death thing though. From being young (our youth) to dying (the ground). Not a climbing out the window thing

The name of this song reminds me of Billy Madison.

Alright the album has been out for a while with the lyric sheets so how about you correct these lyrics

other interpretations of "down down down from our youth to the ground" as a death thing, maybe, but i see it as more like the transistion from kid to adult sorta thing. more of a metorphorical reference to the hopefullness of youth and such and now being in the ground (and dead) because it is now lost. or yeah, it could be simply be the their lives and how they are just going from being young to old