Bad as Me

It feels like this is a song about someone who's always on your mind and you just can't get them out of your head no matter what you try to do. They seem to be at the core of everything you do ('the head on the spear'), the reason why you drink ('the fly in my beer') and that's probably because they got away ('the key that got lost'), they're love that u lost. But the song also tells that this person is just like u, a mirror image, they're just as bad as you and if u were in their shoes u'd do everything just the same way. So even though u love em, u love because they remind u of urself, and even though u'd one day get a chance to be with them u'd most likely run just the same (the second part of the song tells this the most, when he turns to speak about himself 'I'm the one with the gun, Most likely to run, I'm the car in the weeds, If you cut me I'll bleed). Two people in love with eachother, but most likely just in love with their own selves...and running in circles.

Good song.

"They told me you were no good/But I know you'll take care of all my needs/You're the same kinda bad as me" - this line pretty much sums it up. He's saying "Hey, we deserve each other cuz we're both just as messed up as each other in the same way, so we can look after one another." Kinda sweet, in a way. Also, the line "You'd bite down on the sheet, but you're teeth have been wired" must be one of the most disturbing lyrics of all time.

I'm hearing a question mark after "bad as me" and a condescending tone any time that notion is proposed.

In the first six examples the person being spoken to is inserting themselves noisily into a situation and fouling it all up. The head on the spear is what causes the trouble, "the nail on the cross", "the fly in the beer". The narrator later typifies his kind of bad as reactionary or symptomatic. "The blood on the floor", "the thunder and the roar", "the detective of late" are all things that come after the event, not that cause it.

The narrator, he can withstand the events, "I'm the ship that won't sink". The person spoken to, the noisy (young, dumb, full of come?) cause, cannot withstand: "You'd bite down on the sheet / But your teeth have been wired / You skid in the rain / You're trying to shift / You're grinding the gears / You're trying to shift".

They are actually two fundamentally different kinds of bad, but maybe not without overlap. What's there to withstand if there's never anything gets started? "They told me you were no good / But I know you'll take care of all my needs". So, same or not, they inhabit the same world.

Up till this point in the song the narrator has been a product of his surroundings. Now he's playing more a facilitative role: "I'm the mattress in the back" and where before he was weathering the storm, now he's ready to bleed. He's a lot like that fellow that he'd earlier distanced himself from.

I'm imagining two fellows sat next to each other in a seedy bar, one young and over eager, the other hard and perhaps a little jaded but self-assured by long experience.

I see two possible interpretations of these lyrics:

The first is that it is about a mutually destructive couple and is probably the most readily apparent reading.

The second has a more sinister angle: 'the mattress in the back / the old gunnysack', references to blood, 'the thunder and the roar', 'your teeth have been wired', 'the one with gun... if you cut me I bleed'. It makes me think of a delusional guy pursuing a woman who he is sure is leading him on or provocative in some way ('Mother Superior / Wearing only a bra' - she pertains to be good but he sees the 'truth'). In the first verse the narrator describes what 'she' is, according to him: he compares her to things that somehow barb or stick in the craw. In the final verse he indicates what he is to her: 'the mattress in the back / the old gunnysack'. The message seems to be: 'this is where you're gonna end up honey. In the gunnysack, on my mattress in the back of my van'. In the middle verse we see the pursuit: "You skid in the rain / you're trying to shift'.

Of course, this just as easily fits the first interpretation: a destructive couple that nonetheless can't get away from each other. But there's nothing really ruling out the second interpretation, which is the mark of a good song.