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In a Big City Lyrics
I grew up on one side of the river
I was a disturbed, dangerous drifter
moved over to the other side of the river
now I'm a drop in a deluge of hipsters
something a guy from the first side said:
"to die in a cipher, city to a cinder”
male or female, beggars still the only ones calling me “Mister”
and some of my dreams are coming true
and some of the smoke from the other room is seeping through
and some other ghost in another tomb is screaming too
black hole, open up wide
your lost son is coming inside
spaceship? Or a lifeboat?
Put me out, coach, I'm ready to float
who would fardels bear to grunt and sweat
'neath a life that was so mundane?
And what would you expect from a guy like me
on a day such as Monday
when I know life begins at the moment
of consumption?
So taxing on the dollars and the sense
of deduction
And every cent I ever earned I spent
and I would again
It's easy turning me on
I'm nearly a robot
I've been building bombs
bombs between beers and blowjobs
lifeless automaton, feeling like a ghost
I don't know much but I know which side's buttered on my toast
From Jersey I come, but I pump my own gas
I'm a dirty bum, but I wipe my own ass
If you're chasing any other kind of currency, son
you're really doing little more than twiddling your thumbs
I was a disturbed, dangerous drifter
moved over to the other side of the river
now I'm a drop in a deluge of hipsters
something a guy from the first side said:
"to die in a cipher, city to a cinder”
male or female, beggars still the only ones calling me “Mister”
and some of the smoke from the other room is seeping through
and some other ghost in another tomb is screaming too
your lost son is coming inside
spaceship? Or a lifeboat?
Put me out, coach, I'm ready to float
who would fardels bear to grunt and sweat
'neath a life that was so mundane?
on a day such as Monday
when I know life begins at the moment
of consumption?
of deduction
and I would again
I'm nearly a robot
I've been building bombs
bombs between beers and blowjobs
lifeless automaton, feeling like a ghost
I don't know much but I know which side's buttered on my toast
From Jersey I come, but I pump my own gas
I'm a dirty bum, but I wipe my own ass
If you're chasing any other kind of currency, son
you're really doing little more than twiddling your thumbs
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
RE: the first verse:
Patrick Stickles grew up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, [not directly] across the Hudson River from New York City, Stickles moved from New Jersey to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where his beard and Army surplus jacket blend in much better than they did in Jersey. The official lyric video flashes a picture of Norman Mailer, a writer from Long Branch, New Jersey, who later moved to New York.
Norman Mailer wrote a famous essay in 1957 called “The White Negro” that (arguably) introduced the idea of the “hipster” into popular culture
He opens it by suggesting that subcultures flourish in cities because people need their sense of identity more – even more in the face of post-war atomic threats – essentially that, if a city got nuked, all its residents would be even more anonymous to someone examining the rubble years later
“For the first time in civilized history, perhaps for the first time in all of history, we have been forced to live with the suppressed knowledge that the smallest facets of our personality or the most minor projection of our ideas, or indeed the absence of ideas and the absence of personality could mean equally well that we might still be doomed to die as a cipher in some vast statistical operation in which our teeth would he counted, and our hair would be saved, but our death itself would be unknown, unhonored, and unremarked..”
"I don't know much but I know which side's buttered on my toast"
sounds like a ref to Dr. Seuss's "The Butter Battle Book." It's about a senseless, devastating war between two nations based on trivial things (which side of the toast they like their butter on). Yep Seuss still hits the nail on the head.
I thought that too, but I have come to lean towards another explanation.
I thought that too, but I have come to lean towards another explanation.
I would say it is another absurd reference, to the idiom "I don't know much, but I know which side is buttered on my toast", which basically is "Know what will end up getting you the most, and make that decision". Kind of reacting on senses and instant gratification in an absurd world, similar to Merscault in Albert Camus's "The Outsider".
I would say it is another absurd reference, to the idiom "I don't know much, but I know which side is buttered on my toast", which basically is "Know what will end up getting you the most, and make that decision". Kind of reacting on senses and instant gratification in an absurd world, similar to Merscault in Albert Camus's "The Outsider".
But your interpretation could still be right. Even though a lot of feud's can be be pointless, it could be...
But your interpretation could still be right. Even though a lot of feud's can be be pointless, it could be an ode to jersey and sticking by his city.