Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real
All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head
She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam
Lets take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes
Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day
There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone
Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy('s arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'Swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms
Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word
Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest-he's the doctor
He can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tenderness-the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary's lips
Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your insides out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'Swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your daddy's arms
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Anne, with her father is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves on the sea
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real
All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head
She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam
Lets take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes
Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day
There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone
Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy('s arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'Swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms
Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word
Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest-he's the doctor
He can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tenderness-the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary's lips
Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your insides out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'Swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your daddy's arms
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Anne, with her father is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves on the sea
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But, though I appreciate the input of Miranda, she is wildly misinformed.
"Anne Sexton was sexually abused by her parents." This has actually been denied by every member of Anne's family. Even Anne's own psychiatrist believes that she made up the fact that her father sexually abused her, though it's been included in her biography because her therapist thought it was "real to Anne."
"When she was in her 20's she tried committing suicide with a piece of "broken glass" and went to see a psychiartist not long after." Actually, this couldn't be more wrong. Yes, she did attempt suicide, but with pills after she gave birth to Linda and not a "piece of broken glass." The broken glass is more likely a reference to the dreams she sees that are now broken.
"I think I read somewhere that her parents died while on vaction. Their boat tipped over and they drowned..."let's take the boat out, wait until darkness."- Ummm... whoever wrote that needs to be smacked. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Anne Sexton's parents deaths are well documented in her poetry. Her mother died of breast cancer- and her father died from... something wrong with his brain not too long after if I remember correctly what she said in her poems.
"Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey" refers to her looking for mercy in her house in the "suburbs." -I see this as more of a reference to institutions.
"It said in the biography that I took from the library that her parents urged her not to tell anyone about the things that happened at home. After they died, she felt like she could finally let everything out." -What biography did you read?! This is insanely inaccurate- not even close.
"She went to a church and confessed to a "a priest--he's the doctor, he can handle the shocks." The shocks are referring to the cruel things her parents did to her." -Actually this is a dual reference: to shock treatment and to the poem "The Kiss" in which she likens sex to ECTs, which makes sense. She told her shrink that the only good thing she could do with her life was to become a prostitute and make men feel powerful. The priest reference is a reference to how much faith she put into the practice of psychiatry.
"Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips, of kissing Mary's lips"...Mary is Anne Sexton's mother. -While yes, this is true, this is most likely a reference to the virgin Mary. Anne, as she grew older, became increasingly more religious, even writing letters to a clergy man who fell in love with her.
Sorry, I just needed to clear that up...
As for my personal interpretation, I think this is probably documenting what happened right before Anne died. After she divorced her husband, who was a large part of her life, she realized that she was alone, one of her biggest fears. "looking down on empty streets, all she can see
are the dreams all made solid
are the dreams all made real"
She is looking back on what she used to have... looking back on what she tried desperately to create. Still yearning for Mercy Street, a place that she thinks she can find only in death. So, she kills herself and finally ends that "Awful Rowing Toward God" by joining her father who was abusive, yes but not sexually, emotionally (she had an acute case of acne growing up and he often expressed disgust at her appearance), but who she wanted to love her.
Anne Sexton was sexually abused by her parents. She was unstable as a child and it only got worse as she grew up. "The dreams made solid and the dreams made real", "all of the buildings and all of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head" refers to her feeling like her dreams will never come true. When she was in her 20's she tried committing suicide with a piece of "broken glass" and went to see a psychiartist not long after. "She pictures the soul with no leak at the seam" refers to her feeling like there was something missing in her life. I think I read somewhere that her parents died while on vaction. Their boat tipped over and they drowned..."let's take the boat out, wait until darkness." "Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey" refers to her looking for mercy in her house in the "suburbs." her psychiatrist encouraged her to write poems to get her anger and sadness out o her system, and it turned out to be what really kept her going in life. The words of her poem "support like bone" in the midst of all the pain in her life. She said in her poem Mercy Street 45 that she was always looking for the street sign... " 'Swear they moved that sign." "Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide mooth, tugging at the darkness, word upon word"... she is shuffling through her papers trying to find a black sheet, and she jots down her dark feelings. It said in the biography that I took at from the library that her parents urged her not to tell anyone about the things that happened at home. After they died, she felt like she could finally let everything out. She went to a church and confessed to a "a priest--he's the doctor, he can handle the shocks." The shocks are referring to the cruel things her parents did to her. "Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips, of kissing Mary's lips"...Mary is Anne Sexton's mother. The biography said that she was always afraid of her parents abandonning her, so she would always shake... "the tremble in the hips." In the second verse, Peter mentions "the steam."
After her thrid suicide attempt, Anne finally died. She was killed by carbon monoxide in her home. Carbon monoxide is invisible to the naked eye, but steam and carbon monoxide are both gases.
Well, that is what I think the story is about.
-Miranda
Could it be that when the song says: " she pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam, she pictures a soul with no leak at the seam" It means that she thinks that even though she is suicidal and she knows it, she thinks it is ok to commit suicide and her soul will not suffer the eternal consequences "with no leak" that her soul will remain intact because she is the victim of her situation and of what her parents did to her?????
Also; the paragraph about "pale green and gray, the suburbs, the light of day, so alive and alone words support like bone" means that she doesn´t feel safe or at peace at all and writing is definitely what keeps her from breaking down and falling out of this world.
I think that the "mercy street" actually never existed, it is the ideal place or home that she yerns she had grown up in. Mercy street is the place were she can be happy, innocent and normal, wearing her inside out being this her normal childhood she didn´t get. A place were she feels safe in her loving and caring father´s arms, BUT they moved the sign because she can´t find what she never had. If you think this through It´s so sad........
please let me know if this makes any sense to anyone jejeje
I've been carrying around about half of that meaning with me for years, thanks for lighting up the even darker parts.
You reviewed any more Gabriel? Might take a look
There is a major piece of the puzzling missing in the comments so far: While Sexton wrote a poem called "45 Mercy Street" and Gabriel's lyrics obviously refer to it, there was also a play that Sexton wrote called "Mercy Street" (identical to Gabriel's song) and nobody has so far mentioned it.
The play is set in a hospital during the Civil War, and the female lead is named Mary who begins a relationship with a doctor named Jed. Given that Gabriel's lyrics have the same title, refer to a hospital, and mention a Mary, that's likely the Sexton work most relevant to the lyrics – though they aren't the only work; again, "45 Mercy Street" is certainly relevant.
A third Sexton work almost certainly key to understanding the lyrics is her poem, published posthumously, "Rowing Towards God." This poem uses a boat voyage towards an island as a metaphor for death, and it was among her final works before she committed suicide.
Given this (but now, we see, we could do a masters degree in literature trying to break all of this down), I'd explain the poem this way:
As an adult, Sexton, as recounted in "45 Mercy Street," searched the neighborhood of her childhood, trying to find her former house. Her search for the physical house failed, as did her spiritual search for something peaceful and calming to orient her. Her present life offers her psychological torment, and she can only dream of mercy – for someone to show her mercy is what she needs and will not receive. Ambiguously, she dreams of mercy and being in her father's arms again as she was as a girl, but Sexton's memories of being in her father's arms are not of mercy but abuse. This is something the song alone wouldn't convey to someone who didn't know Sexton's story.
When Gabriel mentions the corridors of pale green and gray, he may be referring both to the hospital in the play "Mercy Street" and the places where Sexton received psychological treatment. Of course, Gabriel aside, we might ask why she used such similar titles for two of her works with, on the surface, different settings, and it seems like a good guess that she is using the physical horrors of a war hospital as a metaphor for the psychological horrors of her condition (just as her physical search for a house was also a spiritual search for "mercy" – "looking for mercy… Mercy Street"), and Gabriel is probably playing both sides of that ambiguity as well. The "Mary" in the lyrics, mentioned along with a hospital, is probably the one from the play, who is kissed by Jed, and this Mary is probably an avatar for Sexton herself, not the Virgin Mary (as in "The Kiss") nor Sexton's mother.
Finally, taking the boat out "on the sea" is Anne's suicide, and she is "with her father" in the sense that he preceded her in death and that the abuse that Anne remembers was one horrible part of the tormented life that led Anne to take that final journey.
I think a person could take weeks reading Sexton's works, trying to be sure that Gabriel wasn't making an important reference to one poem or another and I haven't taken that time. But I feel sure that three important works are the poems "45 Mercy Street" and "Rowing Towards God" and the play "Mercy Street," which seem to cover the great majority of Gabriel's references.
It's darkly edifying to have listened to this song and casually mused over the lyrics, then find this larger, dark world connected to it. I'd imagined Gabriel's song – quite as "45 Mercy Street" spells out in more detail, as an older woman trying to remember an earlier childhood before her life became so disappointing. It's heartbreaking to know that the story was real and that it's far too late for it to turn out better.
I experienced that growing distance with my own daughter as she grew from my sweet, little girl into a young woman.
It's all a part of life, but it doesn't make the experience any easier.
Em14
i think this song was either written about or for Anne Sexton. i would have to look it up.
but Ange's interpretation certainly seems plausible!
i saw gabriel twice when he came to town on that tour...both shows were amazing..
Anne Sexton was sexually abused by her parents. She was unstable as a child and it only got worse as she grew up. "The dreams made solid and the dreams made real", "all of the buildings and all of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head" refers to her feeling like her dreams will never come true. When she was in her 20's she tried committing suicide with a piece of "broken glass" and went to see a psychiartist not long after. "She pictures the soul with no leak at the seam" refers to her feeling like there was something missing in her life. I think I read somewhere that her parents died while on vaction. Their boat tipped over and they drowned..."let's take the boat out, wait until darkness." "Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey" refers to her looking for mercy in her house in the "suburbs." her psychiatrist encouraged her to write poems to get her anger and sadness out o her system, and it turned out to be what really kept her going in life. The words of her poem "support like bone" in the midst of all the pain in her life. She said in her poem Mercy Street 45 that she was always looking for the street sign... " 'Swear they moved that sign." "Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide mooth, tugging at the darkness, word upon word"... she is shuffling through her papers trying to find a black sheet, and she jots down her dark feelings. It said in the biography that I took at from the library that her parents urged her not to tell anyone about the things that happened at home. After they died, she felt like she could finally let everything out. She went to a church and confessed to a "a priest--he's the doctor, he can handle the shocks." The shocks are referring to the cruel things her parents did to her. "Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips, of kissing Mary's lips"...Mary is Anne Sexton's mother. The biography said that she was always afraid of her parents abandonning her, so she would always shake... "the tremble in the hips." In the second verse, Peter mentions "the steam."
After her thrid suicide attempt, Anne finally died. She was killed by carbon monoxide in her home. Carbon monoxide is invisible to the naked eye, but steam and carbon monoxide are both gases.
Well, that is what I think the story is about.
-Miranda