Heaven Knows

Sounds like a take on troubled kids/people (homelessness, prostitution, drugs, etc...) feeling like they don't deserve any better than their lives.

I think this song is about mocking organized religion telling people of different faiths/sexual orientations that they belong in hell.

it could be talking about Neillsville,WI and how much it suchs living he is like being dammed to hell

To me it is about how Fd up society is, filled with greed and people taking advantage of those just trying to get by.

Some guy looking at what how he is taking advantage of people to gain and knows damned well it is wrong: "Jimmy's in the back with a pocket of high If you listen close You can hear him cry Oh, lord, heaven knows We belong way down below Sing it Oh, lord, heaven knows We belong way down below Way down below, way down below"

Hooker doing crap she hates because she doesn't see options: "Judy's in the front seat picking up trash Living on the dough Gotta make that cash Won't be pretty Won't be sweet She's just sittin' there on her feet"

Saying everything is just crap and it gets worse: "I've had better days, man I've seen better days I've had better ways, man I know better ways"

God would be judging all of this, and not approving "Oh, lord, heaven knows We belong way down below"

seems like each part of the song seems to fit this mold.

This song doesn't really seem to mean anything. It's very poorly constructed lyrically, and just seems to be an attempt to rhyme with a certain flow, but while stretching the verbage to bring meaning to what I assume was some kind of feeling. It seems the author was trying to write lyrics for a completed score, and felt a certain way or wanted to convey a feeling, but the lyrics are very incoherent and non sequiturial and do not complete a cohesive progression or story arc.

TL;DR: The lyrics don't make sense. This seems to be a 'radio song', with very little care for a meaning within the lyrics. High level of radio play was possibly the motivation instead of conveying a message.

Do these lyrics come from The Pretty Reckless? 'Cause some of them don't sound like what I'm hearing. "Big Mental?" I hear that verse as

One, two, three and four The devil's knocking at your door Caught in the eye of a dead man's lie You start your life with your head up high Now you're on your knees With your head hung low Big man tells you where to go Tell him it's good Tell him okay Don't do a God damn thing they say

Anyway, I take this song to be about people in bad situations who feel they deserve it because (for whatever reason) they aren't living up to the expectations of the world around them. Not rich? Not pretty? Self medicating? That's your fault and you deserve what you get. People hear that enough and they believe it. Failure becomes self-perpetuating.

It\'s full of puns so the meaning is all over the place but my take on it is this:\nThey belong way down in the lowest rungs of society. \nThey belong in hell for their sins.\nThey belong "going down"\n\nArgument for the last:\nJimmy is swapping drugs for sex and the cry you can hear is that of pleasure.\nJudy could be a trash collector... or the trash could be stranger paying for sex.\nThe part "now you\'re on your knees with your head hung low," could mean an lot of things, including sexual.\n\nI could go on but the true meaning of this interpretation is that they\'ve been reduced to objects and that this is not a good thing. Perhaps the combination of meaning is a warning that treating people like objects not only ruins their lives but also forces them into ethically bad situations.

This song is talking about her belonging to hell .