This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
A cab combs the snake,
Tryin' to rake in that last night's fare,
And a solitary sailor
Who spends the facts of his life like small change on strangers
Paws his inside P-coat pocket for a welcome twenty-five cents,
And the last bent butt from a package of Kents,
As he dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes
And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair
Her rhinestone-studded moniker says, Irene
As she wipes the wisps of dishwater blonde from her eyes
And the Texaco beacon burns on,
The steel-belted attendant with a ring and valve special
Cryin' fill'er up and check that oil
You know it could be a distributor and it could be a coil
The early mornin' final edition's on the stands,
And that town cryer's cryin' there with nickels in his hands
Pigs in a blanket sixty-nine cents
Eggs, roll 'em over and a package of Kents
Adam and Eve on a log, you can sink 'em damn straight
Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can't be late
And the early dawn cracks out a carpet of diamonds
Across a cash crop car lot filled with twilight Coupe Devilles
Leaving the town in a-keeping
Of the one who is sweeping
Up the ghost of Saturday night
Tryin' to rake in that last night's fare,
And a solitary sailor
Who spends the facts of his life like small change on strangers
Paws his inside P-coat pocket for a welcome twenty-five cents,
And the last bent butt from a package of Kents,
As he dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes
And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair
Her rhinestone-studded moniker says, Irene
As she wipes the wisps of dishwater blonde from her eyes
And the Texaco beacon burns on,
The steel-belted attendant with a ring and valve special
Cryin' fill'er up and check that oil
You know it could be a distributor and it could be a coil
The early mornin' final edition's on the stands,
And that town cryer's cryin' there with nickels in his hands
Pigs in a blanket sixty-nine cents
Eggs, roll 'em over and a package of Kents
Adam and Eve on a log, you can sink 'em damn straight
Hash browns, hash browns, you know I can't be late
And the early dawn cracks out a carpet of diamonds
Across a cash crop car lot filled with twilight Coupe Devilles
Leaving the town in a-keeping
Of the one who is sweeping
Up the ghost of Saturday night
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
The Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House) Lyrics as written by Tom Waits
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, JALMA MUSIC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
The Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House) song meanings
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this is a beautiful song. i'm surprised there arent more comments on tom waits songs. how disappointing.
Maxwell House eyes And marmalade thighs with scrambled yellow hair
every time I see a woman who can fit this description this song pops into my head. Gives breakfast a new meaning too.
To me this is about the feeling after being out all night and still up at dawn, and if you were out all saturday night it works, because Sundays at dawn are really dead. The perfect song to end the night-owls' soundtrack.
"He dreams of a waitress with Maxwell House eyes And marmalade thighs, with scRaMBLed yellow hair."
If I had to choose one lyric which sums up the genius of Tom Waits, I often think this would have to be it.
it really is. he's the most interesting character in music history
More great lyrics in this song alone than some other artists whole albums (or careers for that matter). I particularly love the alliteration that bookends the song - 'the solitary sailor who spends the facts of his life like small change on strangers' and then the 'cracks out a carpet of diamonds across a cash crop car lot filled with twighlight Coupe Devilles'. So atmospheric.