The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
I just found me a bottle of blues
Some strange comfort for a soul to soothe
Ain't it hard
Ain't it hard,
To want somebody who doesn't want you
And I've been waiting for a year, a day
Some strange weather must be blowin' my way
Cause I got no mind to go or to stay,
Or be left behind
Holdin' hands with an impotent dream
In a brothel of fake energy
Put a nickel in the graveyard machine
I get higher and lower
I get higher and lower
Like a tired soldier
With nothin' to shoot
And nowhere to lose
This bottle of blues
Egos drone
And pose alone
Like black balloons
All banged and blown
On a backwoods river
The infidels shiver
In the stench of belief
I tell my momma I'm a hundred years late
I'm over the rails
And out of the race
And the crippled psalms
Of an age that won't thaw
Are ringing in my ears
Holdin' hands with an impotent dream
In a brothel of fake energy
Put a nickel in the graveyard machine
I get higher and lower
I get higher and lower
Like a tired soldier
With nothin' to shoot
And nowhere dreams it's a..
Bottle of blues
I just found me a bottle of blues
Some strange comfort for a soul to soothe
Ain't it hard, ain't it hard,
To want somebody who doesn't want you
Holdin' hands with an impotent dream
In a brothel of fake energy
Put a nickel in the graveyard machine
I get higher and lower
I get higher and lower
Like a tired soldier
With nothin' to shoot
And nowhere dreams it's a...
Bottle of blues
Bottle of blues
Some strange comfort for a soul to soothe
Ain't it hard
Ain't it hard,
To want somebody who doesn't want you
And I've been waiting for a year, a day
Some strange weather must be blowin' my way
Cause I got no mind to go or to stay,
Or be left behind
Holdin' hands with an impotent dream
In a brothel of fake energy
Put a nickel in the graveyard machine
I get higher and lower
I get higher and lower
Like a tired soldier
With nothin' to shoot
And nowhere to lose
This bottle of blues
Egos drone
And pose alone
Like black balloons
All banged and blown
On a backwoods river
The infidels shiver
In the stench of belief
I tell my momma I'm a hundred years late
I'm over the rails
And out of the race
And the crippled psalms
Of an age that won't thaw
Are ringing in my ears
Holdin' hands with an impotent dream
In a brothel of fake energy
Put a nickel in the graveyard machine
I get higher and lower
I get higher and lower
Like a tired soldier
With nothin' to shoot
And nowhere dreams it's a..
Bottle of blues
I just found me a bottle of blues
Some strange comfort for a soul to soothe
Ain't it hard, ain't it hard,
To want somebody who doesn't want you
Holdin' hands with an impotent dream
In a brothel of fake energy
Put a nickel in the graveyard machine
I get higher and lower
I get higher and lower
Like a tired soldier
With nothin' to shoot
And nowhere dreams it's a...
Bottle of blues
Bottle of blues
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"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
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This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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“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.
This song is a cry of existential depression, its a theme that pervades 'mutations' generally in my opinion. It starts like a traditional blues song but then mutates into something else - a lament on the pointlessness of musical expression in an era where everything is a copy of a copy, and music is an industry like any other. 'holding hands with an impotent dream' ie my dream was some kind of self-expression, to find a way to express meaning, but in reality it feels lame and unreal, lacking in meaning and a grotesque charicature of my original ambition (like prostitution is a grostesque charicature of love). 'in a brothel full of of fake energy' ie the world of commercial music 'put a nickel in the graveyard machine' ie we are simply copying previous, meaningful texts and all it does is remind us of our own lack. 'I get higher and lower' My moods shift, my music has peaks and troughs, but it is without meaning or consequence and thus remains stagnant. 'Like a tired soldier with nothing to shoot' again lack of meaning 'And nowhere to lose this bottle of blues' ie lack of meaning snd stagnation is frustrating...
He makes this meaning even clearer in the verse 'tell my momma i'm a hundred years late...'
What saves this song, and in my mind, what makes it sublime is that Beck is so adept at using the blues musical form as well as a dry and playful sense of humour to get close to expressing the unexpressible - he really could have called this song 'existential blues' if he wanted to... its absolutely brilliant.