In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Twenty miles left to the show
Hello, my old country
Hello
Stars are just beginning to appear
And I have never, in my life
Before been here
And it's my heart, not me
Who cannot drive
At which conclusion you arrived
Watching me sit here, bolt upright
And cry for no good reason
At the Eastering sky
And the tilt of this strange nation
And the will to remain for the duration
(Waving the flag
Feeling it drag)
Like a bump on a bump on a log, baby
Like I'm in a fistfight with the fog, baby
Step, ball-change, and a-pirouette
And I regret, I regret
How I said to you
Honey, just open your heart
When I've got trouble
Even opening a honey jar
And that, right there, is where we are
And I've been 'fessing, double-fast
Addressing questions nobody asked
I'll get this joy off of my chest, at last
And I will love you
Till the noise has long since passed
And I did not mean to shout
Just drive
Just get us out, dead or alive
The road's too long to mention
Lord, it's something to see
Laid down by the Good Intentions Paving Company
All the way to the thing
We've been playing at, darling
I can see that you're wearing
Your staying-hat, darling
And for the time being, all is well
Won't you love me a spell?
This is blindness, beyond all conceiving
While behind us, the road is leaving
And leaving, and falling back
Like a rope gone slack
And, I saw straightaway
That the lay was steep
But I fell for you, honey
Easy as falling asleep
And that, right there
Is the course I keep
And no amount of talking
Is going to soften the fall
But, like after the rain
Step out of the overhang, that's all
It had a nice ring to it
When the old opry house rang
So, with a solemn auld lang
Syne, sealed, delivered
I sang
And there is hesitation
And it always remains
(Concerning you, me
And the rest of the gang)
And, in our quiet hour
I feel I see everything
And am in love
With the hook
Upon which everyone hangs
And I know you meant
To show the extent
To which you gave a goddang
You ranged real hot and real cold
But I'm sold
I am at home on that range
And I do hate to fold
Right here, at the top of my game
When I've been trying
With my whole heart and soul
To stay right here, in the right lane
But it can make you feel over, and old
(Lord, you know it's a shame)
When I only want for you to pull over
And hold me
Till I can't remember my own name
Hello, my old country
Hello
Stars are just beginning to appear
And I have never, in my life
Before been here
And it's my heart, not me
Who cannot drive
At which conclusion you arrived
Watching me sit here, bolt upright
And cry for no good reason
At the Eastering sky
And the tilt of this strange nation
And the will to remain for the duration
(Waving the flag
Feeling it drag)
Like a bump on a bump on a log, baby
Like I'm in a fistfight with the fog, baby
Step, ball-change, and a-pirouette
And I regret, I regret
How I said to you
Honey, just open your heart
When I've got trouble
Even opening a honey jar
And that, right there, is where we are
And I've been 'fessing, double-fast
Addressing questions nobody asked
I'll get this joy off of my chest, at last
And I will love you
Till the noise has long since passed
And I did not mean to shout
Just drive
Just get us out, dead or alive
The road's too long to mention
Lord, it's something to see
Laid down by the Good Intentions Paving Company
All the way to the thing
We've been playing at, darling
I can see that you're wearing
Your staying-hat, darling
And for the time being, all is well
Won't you love me a spell?
This is blindness, beyond all conceiving
While behind us, the road is leaving
And leaving, and falling back
Like a rope gone slack
And, I saw straightaway
That the lay was steep
But I fell for you, honey
Easy as falling asleep
And that, right there
Is the course I keep
And no amount of talking
Is going to soften the fall
But, like after the rain
Step out of the overhang, that's all
It had a nice ring to it
When the old opry house rang
So, with a solemn auld lang
Syne, sealed, delivered
I sang
And there is hesitation
And it always remains
(Concerning you, me
And the rest of the gang)
And, in our quiet hour
I feel I see everything
And am in love
With the hook
Upon which everyone hangs
And I know you meant
To show the extent
To which you gave a goddang
You ranged real hot and real cold
But I'm sold
I am at home on that range
And I do hate to fold
Right here, at the top of my game
When I've been trying
With my whole heart and soul
To stay right here, in the right lane
But it can make you feel over, and old
(Lord, you know it's a shame)
When I only want for you to pull over
And hold me
Till I can't remember my own name
Lyrics submitted by mutinyinheaven_x
Good Intentions Paving Co. Lyrics as written by Joanna Newsom
Lyrics © ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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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:
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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
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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"
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This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
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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.
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Ed Sheeran
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There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
this song is a description of the narrator's relationship progressing, developing, and becoming stronger daily. the relationship is not, however, without its problems.
after a period of peaceful, happy romance (see "'81"), the woman and her lover run into some trouble. she goes on to tell her lover that she regrets how she told him to open his heart (in "easy"), "when [she's] got trouble even opening a honey jar." when she says, "and that right there is where we are..." she is explaining that the problem at hand is one of her lover having finally let her in, only to find her unable to reciprocate fully. maybe this is why she's decided to take him home to meet the folks and see where she grew up? this indicates that he is, perhaps, not the one making the relationship difficult. here, in this song, we begin to see a picture of the narrator's unreliable emotional state unfolding: she may be someone that is simply hard to be in a relationship with, someone who is not easy to love because of her emotional fluctuations.
anyhow, we now have our current scene: the two lovers taking a trip to the narrator's "old country," which she has presumably moved away from quite some time ago. she feels like she does not recognize the place that she once called home, probably because she has changed so much over the years. feelings of nervousness and anxiety begin to overwhelm her : "i did not mean to shout 'just drive! just get us out, dead or alive!'"
now that she has taken this "leap" in an attempt to make him feel as if she's truly letting him in, she states that "for the time being all is well," and asks him to simply accept that and love her for a while. she convinces him that she fell for him "as easy as falling asleep." she knows that no amount of talking is going to make things better once they start to go bad (presumably she knows that they will because she knows his character and also her own), but for now she's going to try to make it work and enjoy the quiet, loving period of their romance.
the mere idea of the trip is, for lack of better words, really freaking the narrator out. she knows that she's "at the top of [her] game" right now, taking him to her family and her hometown was a great idea for the relationship, but she doesn't want to go. perhaps it's a bad memory there, or perhaps she just isn't ready to take the relationship to that next level. she doesn't want to fold and turn around, and is trying with her "whole heart and soul to stay right here in the right lane." she ends this segment by stating that all she really wants is for her lover to pull over and hold her-- for a very, very long time, "'til [she] can't remember [her] own name."
please remember that this is only my attempt to interpret the whole album, "chapter" by "chapter". i'm trying to not only make sense of each piece as an individual song, but fit them together to form the cohesive narrative that miss newsom intended them to be. i'm not saying my interpretation is as she intended it, but i figured i'd go ahead and share it with you lovely people since i've read your comments for so long without ever adding my own.