How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Old lady lost in the city
In the middle of a cold, cold night
It was fourteen below and the wind start to blow
There wasn't a boy scout in sight
Pull down the shades cause he's comin'
Turn out the lights cause he's here
Runnin' hard down the street
Through the snow and the sleet
On the coldest night of the year
CHORUS
Beware, beware, beware of the Naked Man
Old lady head up toward Broad Street
Shufflin' uptown against the wind
She had started to cry-wiped a tear from her eye
And looked back to see where she had been
Old lady stand on the corner
With a purse in her hand
She does not know but in a minute or so
She will be robbed by a naked man
CHORUS
Old lady lean against a lamppost
Starin' down at the ground on which she stand
She look up and scream
For the lamplight's beam
There stood the famous Naked Man
He say, "They found out about my sister
And kicked me out of the Navy,
They would have strung me up if they could.
I tried to explain that we were both of us lazy
And were doing the best we could."
He faked to the left and he faked to the right
And he snatched the purse fromere hand
"Someone stop me," he cried,
As he faded from sight,
"Won't nobody help a naked man?"
"Won't nobody help a naked man?"
CHORUS
In the middle of a cold, cold night
It was fourteen below and the wind start to blow
There wasn't a boy scout in sight
Pull down the shades cause he's comin'
Turn out the lights cause he's here
Runnin' hard down the street
Through the snow and the sleet
On the coldest night of the year
CHORUS
Beware, beware, beware of the Naked Man
Old lady head up toward Broad Street
Shufflin' uptown against the wind
She had started to cry-wiped a tear from her eye
And looked back to see where she had been
Old lady stand on the corner
With a purse in her hand
She does not know but in a minute or so
She will be robbed by a naked man
CHORUS
Old lady lean against a lamppost
Starin' down at the ground on which she stand
She look up and scream
For the lamplight's beam
There stood the famous Naked Man
He say, "They found out about my sister
And kicked me out of the Navy,
They would have strung me up if they could.
I tried to explain that we were both of us lazy
And were doing the best we could."
He faked to the left and he faked to the right
And he snatched the purse fromere hand
"Someone stop me," he cried,
As he faded from sight,
"Won't nobody help a naked man?"
"Won't nobody help a naked man?"
CHORUS
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
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More Featured Meanings
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Trouble Breathing
Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio
While the obvious connections with suicide or alcoholism could be drawn easily, more subtly this song could be about someone who views the world through a negative lens constantly and how as much as the writer tries to show the beauty in the world, this person refuses to see it. It's one or another between the rope and the bottle. There is no good option for this person. They can't see it. Skiba sings it in a kind of exasperated way like He's tired of hearing this negative view constantly and just allowing that person to continue feeling the way they feel knowing he can't do anything about it. You can hear it when he says maybe you're a vampire.
Somewhere Only We Know
Keane
Keane
Per the FAQ on Keane's website, Keane's drummer Richard Hughes, stated the following:
"We've been asked whether "Somewhere Only We Know" is about a specific place, and Tim has been saying that, for him, or us as individuals, it might be about a geographical space, or a feeling; it can mean something individual to each person, and they can interpret it to a memory of theirs... It's perhaps more of a theme rather than a specific message... Feelings that may be universal, without necessarily being totally specific to us, or a place, or a time..."
With the nostalgic sentiment and the overall tone of the song, I think Keane is attempting to express a Portuguese term known as 'saudade', which does not have a direct English translation but roughly means "that which we remember because it is gone."
Zombie
Cranberries, The
Cranberries, The
"Zombie" is about the ethno-political conflict in Ireland. This is obvious if you know anything of the singer (Dolores O'Riordan)'s Irish heritage and understood the "1916" Easter Rising reference.
"Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken
-
Another mother's breaking
Heart is taking over"
Laments the Warrington bomb attacks in which two children were fatally injured on March 23rd, 1993. Twelve year old Tim Parry was taken off life support with permission from his mother after five days in the hospital, virtually braindead.
"But you see it's not me
It's not my family"
References how people who are not directly involved with the violence feel about it. They are "zombies" without sympathy who refuse to take action while others suffer.
2 of society's victims on coldest night of year - pure compassion and great backing, as ever
My view is the naked man represents a person out of options in life who now has no choices left. He has nothing left to lose, not even is dignity or humanity.
My view is the naked man represents a person out of options in life who now has no choices left. He has nothing left to lose, not even is dignity or humanity.
This song is based on a true story. Randy Newman's good friend, a public defender, was representing a man who was arrested for stealing a purse from a woman while naked. His defense made the already strange story even stranger: apparently, he was in the middle of committing adultery when the woman's husband came home, forcing him to jump out of the window naked as the day God made him. Then suddenly, ANOTHER naked man came running by and handed him a purse, leaving him to explain the story to the police.
The strange and amusing lyrics with absurd and slightly dark implications ("they found out about my sister/kicked me out of the navy/would've strung me up if they could") reflect the nature and emotion of the story. You've got unreliable narrators, strange events and uncomfortable nudity all mixed together.