Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
To scratched out, for everything.
Night fell on me writing this
And I ran out of paper
So I crossed the name out at the top of the page.
Not sure why I'm even writing this.
But I guess it feels right.
It sort of feels like I have to-like an exorcism.
I guess that makes me sound crazy but that's alright.
Lately I feel like I might be,
Not that I've heard any voices or anything.
Just like that everyday kind,
Where you forget things you shouldn't
And you think too much about death.
Maybe you know what I'm talking about.
Or maybe you would have known? Or had known?
Is it once knew? I don't know what tense to use.
I know I never used to feel like this.
I used to never think of death or hear voices.
I used to feel Like everything was perfectly in order,
A normal life, but I guess then came a departure.
That I know you understand (or would've understood?).
I guess things changed after that, and I'm mostly scared now.
But it's there in the stories, or whatever they are.
You can see it.
Anybody could if they could Look.
I wrote some notes in the margins explaining it.
The rest is in between lines or in the fine Print.
First, the feeling of abandonment, then trying to cope.
Then death and hope and the thing Itself, waiting for me.
It's all there in the pages ahead of here.
It's there waiting for you.
Or for me.
I'm not sure.
The whole story.
Night fell on me writing this
And I ran out of paper
So I crossed the name out at the top of the page.
Not sure why I'm even writing this.
But I guess it feels right.
It sort of feels like I have to-like an exorcism.
I guess that makes me sound crazy but that's alright.
Lately I feel like I might be,
Not that I've heard any voices or anything.
Just like that everyday kind,
Where you forget things you shouldn't
And you think too much about death.
Maybe you know what I'm talking about.
Or maybe you would have known? Or had known?
Is it once knew? I don't know what tense to use.
I know I never used to feel like this.
I used to never think of death or hear voices.
I used to feel Like everything was perfectly in order,
A normal life, but I guess then came a departure.
That I know you understand (or would've understood?).
I guess things changed after that, and I'm mostly scared now.
But it's there in the stories, or whatever they are.
You can see it.
Anybody could if they could Look.
I wrote some notes in the margins explaining it.
The rest is in between lines or in the fine Print.
First, the feeling of abandonment, then trying to cope.
Then death and hope and the thing Itself, waiting for me.
It's all there in the pages ahead of here.
It's there waiting for you.
Or for me.
I'm not sure.
The whole story.
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Fast Car
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Mountain Song
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Gentle Hour
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
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These lyrics have some literary references, which makes it really interesting (to me at least). I've come across a few things in my reading, and I wonder if Dreyer intentionally put them there as a nod to literary influences.
'Then came a departure' is a line from a John Berryman poem: Dream Song 1. In the poem I think it's to do with it's protagonist's (Henry's) father's death. The 'departure' is a change into a more melancholic perception of the world, much like like the lyrics of Wildlife.
'The thing itself' is an idea coined by the philosopher Kant, which is basically thinking of something in isolation, without your relation to it; a reference to something existing independently without our understanding of it. In reference to the meaning of this song, I feel Dreyer is trying to say that there's something ahead of him that he doesn't quite understand - that it is apart from him, much like death is.