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Regular John Lyrics
Who are you girl?
Who are you boy?
Bet I know what you're up to
Can I come along
Your home number's on the wall
I just had to call, had to
I'm not the only one
Who will run with a knife
[chorus:]
Open up your eyes
Open up your room
Open up your arms
One six two seven eight
Two six three seven eight nine
where's your daddy now
I heard he ran away
who are you girl?
cause I'm so bored with myself
anyway
any time and any place
I'll just hang around
[repeat chorus]
one six two seven eight
two six three seven eight nine
[chorus:]
open up your eyes
open up your room
open up your arms
open up your door
open up your eyes
open up your room
Who are you boy?
Bet I know what you're up to
Can I come along
Your home number's on the wall
I just had to call, had to
I'm not the only one
Who will run with a knife
Open up your eyes
Open up your room
Open up your arms
One six two seven eight
Two six three seven eight nine
where's your daddy now
I heard he ran away
who are you girl?
cause I'm so bored with myself
anyway
any time and any place
I'll just hang around
two six three seven eight nine
open up your eyes
open up your room
open up your arms
open up your door
open up your eyes
open up your room
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So I got into QotSA after songs for the deaf, and this one made sense to me. I think its about those phone numbers on public bathroom stalls. Theres the whole part where hes talking about the number, and wondering who she is, and then what kind of person he is if he were to call her. Plus i think the fact that the song is "regular John" helps my theory a bit, yaknow like a "port-a-John". I think the running with the knife part is throwing a lot of you off becuase your taking it literal like a killer or something, but it just means being risky. I feel pretty confident about my interpretation, oh and repition in a song SHOULD NOT be interpretted, comon now.
@tylerinabuket the title is referring to a John, which is a man who pays for sex. It's not about a portapotty.
@tylerinabuket the title is referring to a John, which is a man who pays for sex. It's not about a portapotty.
Probably the song is about a prostitute and her "Regular John" (which is slang for a regular customer of a hooker). Perhaps that was just an ironic way to describe a non commercial relationship, maybe his girl is sleeping around and he feels like a regular john. Anyway, great album maybe my fav album of all time, has significance to me as i first heard it the first time i took e (in my opinion the intended state for listenting to it). Blew my mind
Anytime someone takes E (or any other drug for that matter) they think whatever they're doing is intended to be experienced on it. That's kind of a side effect, not reality. It's just a song and is totally awesome on and off E. To assume that they wrote it just for someone on E is a bit preposterous and probably completely an illusion.
Anytime someone takes E (or any other drug for that matter) they think whatever they're doing is intended to be experienced on it. That's kind of a side effect, not reality. It's just a song and is totally awesome on and off E. To assume that they wrote it just for someone on E is a bit preposterous and probably completely an illusion.
@iamthelizardking Okay, this is a decade after your comment but I have only just decided to try to find out what "a john" means! (I'm Australian and it's not present in the jargon/s here). For some reason, I never think of it when I'm with American friends...= D... Regarding the 'E' comments, I personally think the interpretations of the brain are the most powerful when under the brain's influence. Radical.
@iamthelizardking Okay, this is a decade after your comment but I have only just decided to try to find out what "a john" means! (I'm Australian and it's not present in the jargon/s here). For some reason, I never think of it when I'm with American friends...= D... Regarding the 'E' comments, I personally think the interpretations of the brain are the most powerful when under the brain's influence. Radical.
@iamthelizardking Okay, this is a decade after your comment but I have only just decided to try to find out what "a john" means! (I'm Australian and it's not present in the jargon/s here). For some reason, I never think of it when I'm with American friends...= D... Regarding the 'E' comments, I personally think the interpretations of the brain are the most powerful when under the brain's influence. Radical. Anyway, thanks for the lesson in slang.
@iamthelizardking Okay, this is a decade after your comment but I have only just decided to try to find out what "a john" means! (I'm Australian and it's not present in the jargon/s here). For some reason, I never think of it when I'm with American friends...= D... Regarding the 'E' comments, I personally think the interpretations of the brain are the most powerful when under the brain's influence. Radical. Anyway, thanks for the lesson in slang.
This song is about hooking up, most likely with a stranger.
guy calling a prostitute?
or calling his girlfriend, but pretending as a weird joke that he found her number on the bathroom wall and he's her customer
I seriously see this as some psycho who calls up those random numbers you sometimes see in bathroom stales: that's it.
The numbers in this song are actually the phone number of one of Josh's ex-girlfriends.
Q: In "Regular John", is that a phone number?
Josh: It's a number with one extra digit. It was just in there, but then I was thinking I can't put a real number in the song. I don't want someone calling it either, but I had to leave it. So it's a whole phone number, with one extra digit stashed in there. That's cool, man. You're the first person whose ever asked me that question. It's a bad number though.
Josh: "This is about ex-boyfriends and girlfriends and all the fuckin they should've done." - from 2000/10/04
it's a boy-meets-girl thing, I think. but when I listen to this song I always think of a mentally deranged guy who wants to get a certain girl and kill her. he is a kind of a geek and he always calls her, follows her home and when he catches her alone he stabs her. sounds stupid, I know...
such a great song especially now the way they play it live and jam on it
the phone number is partly changed but otherwise the same as his ex's, so there goes the bathroom wall theory
it's just about his ex, and has plenty of hateful venom to it, one of my favourite queens songs
I think it's about a stalker who becomes obsessed with a prostitute. The line "Your home number's on the wall" suggests she's a call girl and "Where's your daddy now" might point to the broken ome that prostitutes are stereotyped to have grown up in. e wants a relationship with the prostitute and she rejects him painfully. The knife line, I think, is a metaphor for the nastiness in people. The guy's 'knife' is his creepiness, and the girl's is the vindictive way she rejected him.