Quoteables:
“New corn yellow and slaughterhouse red
The birds keep singing baby after you're dead”
A realistic and new way of saying “life goes on”, but said in a way that sounds like Waits is trying to convince someone that they aren’t the center of the universe.
“Have all the lights burned out on heaven again
I’ll never roll the number seven again”
I never knew what Waits was saying in the first line until now, and wow! It sounds like something a cynical religious person would say whenever there is a tragedy in the world. And to follow up that line with a problem gambler’s lament? Such a small tragedy! It’s a parallel of comedic proportions - at first, I think the narrator has something profound to say about the world and then to find out he’s just being over-dramatic in the wake of his own gambling problem – to think he’d ask for such pity is insulting!
“What’s your throttle made of, is it money or bone?
Don’t you doddle or you'll never get home”
I don’t even know what the first line means – is he asking what my thrill is? Am I looking to put a price on my thrills and profit in a financial stance or looking for thrills of the flesh? These are both material thrills, and since they are my only options, my spiritual and mental thrills are denied, which totally debases my humanity, man. The second line is just cute, like something Waits’d say to his son. Oh and my heavens these two lines work so well together, what with the rhyme scheme and all – “throttle” goes with “doddle” and “bone” with “home” – it looks like Waits is a good a rapper as any of ‘em.
“If I had it all to do all over again
I’d rise above the laws of man”
How much regret can we take? First he’s a gambler sad because he’s down on his luck and now he’s an old man, or at least a settled down one, reflecting on his life, saying “If I had to do it all over again, I’d change one thing: I’d be more of an asshole” and break the law whenever it suited him, no matter how much trouble he got into or how much he hurt his family. Just kidding. He’s saying to “rise above” the laws of man, which indicates something holier than just being a rebel hippie up to his Birkenstocks in situational morality. He wishes he was a man values, principles and convictions, and stood by them no matter how much trouble he got into. Like Sir Thomas More getting on the wrong end of the guillotine of the king because he would not bend his Godly morals to the whim of his country’s laws. Waits feels like sacrificed divine law for earthly laws, I can only speculate. He’s into Jesus, so I can assume “rise above” means to replace the earthly, worldly city of man with the city of God and all its permanent grace, which puts earthly objects to shame.
“Turn a Rolls Royce into a chicken coop”
I know the lyrics on his web site say “Chicken Coup” referring to a kind of car by some crackpot drag strip racer who named car a “Chicken Coupe”, but how in the hell was I supposed to know that, I already got the image of a car magically poofing into a stationary house for birds in my head and I love it and I’m not gonna change it. Plus when I listened to this I thought how clever I was when I came up with a “chicken coup”, you know, ousting the leader chicken party and replacing it with another because it has a stronger militia. Of chickens. I was going to make a movie out of it. How bout the whole Iran conflict is filmed in a barnyard with footage of roosters and hens lazing around and fucking and roosters fighting and we get George Clooney and Brad Pitt to dub the voices of all the major players.
Quoteables: “New corn yellow and slaughterhouse red The birds keep singing baby after you're dead” A realistic and new way of saying “life goes on”, but said in a way that sounds like Waits is trying to convince someone that they aren’t the center of the universe. “Have all the lights burned out on heaven again I’ll never roll the number seven again” I never knew what Waits was saying in the first line until now, and wow! It sounds like something a cynical religious person would say whenever there is a tragedy in the world. And to follow up that line with a problem gambler’s lament? Such a small tragedy! It’s a parallel of comedic proportions - at first, I think the narrator has something profound to say about the world and then to find out he’s just being over-dramatic in the wake of his own gambling problem – to think he’d ask for such pity is insulting! “What’s your throttle made of, is it money or bone? Don’t you doddle or you'll never get home” I don’t even know what the first line means – is he asking what my thrill is? Am I looking to put a price on my thrills and profit in a financial stance or looking for thrills of the flesh? These are both material thrills, and since they are my only options, my spiritual and mental thrills are denied, which totally debases my humanity, man. The second line is just cute, like something Waits’d say to his son. Oh and my heavens these two lines work so well together, what with the rhyme scheme and all – “throttle” goes with “doddle” and “bone” with “home” – it looks like Waits is a good a rapper as any of ‘em. “If I had it all to do all over again I’d rise above the laws of man” How much regret can we take? First he’s a gambler sad because he’s down on his luck and now he’s an old man, or at least a settled down one, reflecting on his life, saying “If I had to do it all over again, I’d change one thing: I’d be more of an asshole” and break the law whenever it suited him, no matter how much trouble he got into or how much he hurt his family. Just kidding. He’s saying to “rise above” the laws of man, which indicates something holier than just being a rebel hippie up to his Birkenstocks in situational morality. He wishes he was a man values, principles and convictions, and stood by them no matter how much trouble he got into. Like Sir Thomas More getting on the wrong end of the guillotine of the king because he would not bend his Godly morals to the whim of his country’s laws. Waits feels like sacrificed divine law for earthly laws, I can only speculate. He’s into Jesus, so I can assume “rise above” means to replace the earthly, worldly city of man with the city of God and all its permanent grace, which puts earthly objects to shame. “Turn a Rolls Royce into a chicken coop” I know the lyrics on his web site say “Chicken Coup” referring to a kind of car by some crackpot drag strip racer who named car a “Chicken Coupe”, but how in the hell was I supposed to know that, I already got the image of a car magically poofing into a stationary house for birds in my head and I love it and I’m not gonna change it. Plus when I listened to this I thought how clever I was when I came up with a “chicken coup”, you know, ousting the leader chicken party and replacing it with another because it has a stronger militia. Of chickens. I was going to make a movie out of it. How bout the whole Iran conflict is filmed in a barnyard with footage of roosters and hens lazing around and fucking and roosters fighting and we get George Clooney and Brad Pitt to dub the voices of all the major players.