The Hanging Garden Lyrics
Shapeless in the dark again
In the hanging garden
Please don't speak
In the hanging garden
No one sleeps
Gives my hands the shapes of angels
In the heat of the night
The animals scream
In the heat of the night
Walking into a dream...
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals cry
In the hanging garden
Shapeless in the dark again
In a hanging garden
Change the past
In a hanging garden
Wearing furs and masks...
Into the walls
Jump jump out of time
Fall fall fall fall
Out of the sky
Cover my face as the animals die
In the hanging garden
From Robert himself, "the hanging garden is something like about the purity and hate of animals fucking, and i think siamese twins is about the hate and purity of people fucking too ..." R. Smith, from cure news Number 9, 1990
@nsjdog I can dig that ... birth, like teeing off in golf, is the first move in "losing" the game. One is infinitely more than zero ya now. Then again, maybe he meant in this quote, the comparison of the vast similarities between humanity and animals along with their respective dichotomies of absolute violence and absolute beauty, furthered by the yin and yang, if you will, of two separate and polar opposite individuals forever destined to literally be attached at the hip. I took the moment here, because I thought it\'d be neat to see what 32+/- years has changed,...
@nsjdog I can dig that ... birth, like teeing off in golf, is the first move in "losing" the game. One is infinitely more than zero ya now. Then again, maybe he meant in this quote, the comparison of the vast similarities between humanity and animals along with their respective dichotomies of absolute violence and absolute beauty, furthered by the yin and yang, if you will, of two separate and polar opposite individuals forever destined to literally be attached at the hip. I took the moment here, because I thought it\'d be neat to see what 32+/- years has changed, if anything, in Mr. Smith\'s perception of it. When this music was being made and spoke about was also the same time as some of the best Orange Sunshine, E, and Shrooms in world history were prevalent, especially in this "scene". It could be easily admitted today, "Yeah ... I dunno what that meant Man, I was trippin\' balls a lot back then, but I\'m an artist ... really, I was just a poet with a Dope band tryin\' to bag an \'Emo chick that\'s broken\' before they words like \'Emo\' for someone. WTF ... sounded good though right?"\r\nIt\'s sorta the beauty of art though ... everyone perceives the same work in as many ways as eyes that fell upon it, and even those perceptions are relative to where to where that individual is in space and time. \r\nBut WTF do I know, right? I took the moment on the off chance ... EIGHTEEN years later, if your personal perception has changed about it any. I thought you may be a Scout (the NSJ in your username), and if anyone would see this, or even care that long afterward, and share their thoughts for this little "experiment" a Scout would be a good pick. Since I talk and it types now, I figured WTF, maybe in another 18, Bob will be in the musician legends retirement home and his Parcheesi partner, Johnny Lydon, will say, "BOB! look at this, this bloke only met ya once for a couple hours, and he nailed it!!! Didn\'t he?" ¯\(ツ)/¯ The question is what do YOU think now? ... not about the old nutbar asking ya the question ???? Just the question itself.\r\n\r\nMuch love!!! ✌\r\n ϻя.ƹ
Incidentally, there was a book published in 1980, called The Hanging Garden, by someone called Wagoner. Pornography was released in 1982. Grounds for speculation? I think so.
The book is about “a patch of ground where someone has been making a practice of hanging every sort of animal, from dogs to spiders.” You should look into it…
I think that the song might have meanings beyond the few words by Rober Smith, beyond his conscious intentions and beyond the limited and banal "animal rights" interpretation. The song has many allusions to suicide ("hanging"), love and death. It is as if the song of a man just after his suicide by hanging. Suicide I guess has been an obsession for Smith in the early years, especially after Ian Curtis' death by hanging. As someone has said, the "hanging garden" might be seen as an allusion to Babylon and I'd add, to this world, our transient, ephemeral life on earth. The allusion to the kiss might also be seen as the kiss of death ("Creatures kissing in the rain"). There are different metaphors of dying ("Shapeless in the dark again"). Death is not sleep, it is irrevocable ("In the hanging garden no one sleeps") A seemingly ironic view of the the lunaticism of trusting in forms of otherworldliness ("Catching halos on the moon / Gives my hands the shapes of angels"). The "animals" as all the living beings, including us humans as reduced to the biological being, that is as human beings that are dead as humans and only live as unconscious animals ("In the heat of the night the animals scream"), the reference to the "scream" might be seen as screaming at a funeral. Falling "into the walls": another way of representing being buried. Dying and making love as both ways of being in "ecstasy" beyond the earthly life ("Jump jump out of time ... out of the sky"). Other allusions to being buried during a funeral ("Cover my face as the animals cry"). Suicide and "fucking" as attempts to change one's traumas an one's identity ("change the past", "wearing furs and masks"). Wearing furs and mask is an allusion to dying of one's authentic self in the "theatre" of social life and in a world where human life is reduced to biological, "animal", unconscious life. In the end there is something like a prayer for avoiding to see the pain of universal death "Cover my face as the animals die" (this allusion recalls the theme of the other song "One hundred years" in the same album).
PS: I think that to understand the meaning of this song you should read the lyrics of the demo version, which are quite different and show that even Robert Smith's words might be a bit misleading at a first glance, as they are not explicit ("animals fucking" might be a veiled allusion to sexual abuse by "human beasts"):
PS: I think that to understand the meaning of this song you should read the lyrics of the demo version, which are quite different and show that even Robert Smith's words might be a bit misleading at a first glance, as they are not explicit ("animals fucking" might be a veiled allusion to sexual abuse by "human beasts"):
The animal runs slow across me
The animal runs slow across me
I'm so tired
I'm so tired
I can only fall
I can only fall
The black is dripping
The black is dripping
In the hanging garden
In the hanging garden
Please don't speak
Please don't speak
Blood in my ears and eyes like ice
Blood in my ears and eyes like ice
Don't move
Don't move
Why won't I move
Why won't I move
...
Why do I pretend
We're made of everyone else
I see you in my room
I think of your friend
The ordinary chokes me
When no one cares
Empty men
You're so useless
Choking under covers
Stifled like a dead man
Happy with the empty men
In a small room
Lash my face with glass
Era away from the animals
Still no closer
Cursing my fingers like ribbon
Like an animal swelling in sickness
Sallow child, frustration and hatred
Cutting my hair
Like cutting life with clean hands
Touching me
A brother lies in shapes of angels
Keep her away from my face
Series
Pictures of madmen color the walls
It's all a waste of time
Everything jumps once
And I fall into the walls
Covered like a madman choking
Choking like an empty man
Swaying out of time to be real again
I think I should finish soon
I think I should end
Magic and dreams and the end of the world
Choking on the covers
That stifle a dead man
Happy empty man
Sit in a small room
Lash my face and the animals sing
Please don't speak in the hanging garden
Every night in the hanging garden
The animals drip in the hanging garden
The animals drip at the side of the road
The animals drip at the side of the road
In the hanging garden
In the hanging garden
I personally hold a grudge against the Cure because they try to be gothic and dark but half of their songs are very happy at base and when you listen to songs like this the lyrics are very weak and almost half-assed. Either way this song is about using fur as clothing. The "Hanging" Garden means a store where fur is hung on racks. "Wearing furs and masks" , "cover my face as the animals die". It's all pretty self explanatory
@thom657 Not Hardly. They are a not-a-goth band producing gothic (post punk) music and that isn't even the inspiration for this song. Obviously it's not as self explanatory as you think.
@thom657 Not Hardly. They are a not-a-goth band producing gothic (post punk) music and that isn't even the inspiration for this song. Obviously it's not as self explanatory as you think.
I think the original ver. is better because the chorus is done with power without making it more hardcore, which is something I think was bad for the atmosphere of the song that AFI did. Also Havok seems to rush his ending "Hanging Garden".
I'd hate to try to interpret a Cure song, none the less something so emotionally invoked as this was, but I think it's just about physical actions towards love without any real substance of love there.
I like NoSocialGroup's thoughts on this song more than Robert Smith's...
-Katie. xoxo.
This song is really haunting, and personally I love The Cure's original version better than any cover. Just the drums in the background as well. Saw them do this live on the Trilogy DVD (I think...) and it was amazing...
Ugh, stupid little pop rock bands covering excellent songs like this. It frustrates me so much, because so many kids don't know it's by the Cure originally.
I'm 14. I haven't gone 2 days without listening to The Cure, since like 2009 I think... Anyway I hate any covers of The Cure's songs, they just sound super shit! I saw on youtube once, some crap as Disney Asian (not trying to be racist, sorry) band cover a Cure song, and seriously it ruined my day, it was absolutley vile! Oh and I heard that Robert said that 'Hanging' is an old English word for uh... masturbation :L He could have been bullshitting but I'm sure that has something to do with the meaning of the song! xo
I'm 14. I haven't gone 2 days without listening to The Cure, since like 2009 I think... Anyway I hate any covers of The Cure's songs, they just sound super shit! I saw on youtube once, some crap as Disney Asian (not trying to be racist, sorry) band cover a Cure song, and seriously it ruined my day, it was absolutley vile! Oh and I heard that Robert said that 'Hanging' is an old English word for uh... masturbation :L He could have been bullshitting but I'm sure that has something to do with the meaning of the song! xo
omg. The trilogy dvd is amaaazing. i watch it all the time. it is my favorite. the visuals and camera angles were incerdible. best buy i ever made. anyways...it almost seems like a person was left for another and he is angry. like creatures kissing in the rain. i always think of the person staring at the couple as they kiss with such hatred. when i hear garden i see beauty. but change the past..like living regret from that past relationship. im may be way off. im barely learning how to interpret lyrics. bare with me here =)
ikkunaprincessa - did someone else cover this? Because if you're talking about AFI's cover, then man that was a long time ago before AFI were anything remotely close to pop (I agree, they are pop now, and I love them for it). An amazing cover of a brilliant song.
But I really can't dig Robert Smith's thoughts on the meaning of it.