This is a very disturbing song lyrically and in Sumner's delivery. I can't quite make sense of it (this is New Order after all), but it seems pretty clear that the singer is obsessed with "Jolene" and from the line about "lifeless eyes," Jolene is dead. The tone of the song is threatening and obsessive--wanting, even needing, to be with Jolene but if it doesn't work out he will haunt her, track her down, ("I will live in you forever", "There's no place where you can hide") and maybe he even murdered her? But the talk about limits and levels in the second verse makes me wonder if perhaps this is really yet another song about drugs...which would be a lot less creepy.
This is a very disturbing song lyrically and in Sumner's delivery. I can't quite make sense of it (this is New Order after all), but it seems pretty clear that the singer is obsessed with "Jolene" and from the line about "lifeless eyes," Jolene is dead. The tone of the song is threatening and obsessive--wanting, even needing, to be with Jolene but if it doesn't work out he will haunt her, track her down, ("I will live in you forever", "There's no place where you can hide") and maybe he even murdered her? But the talk about limits and levels in the second verse makes me wonder if perhaps this is really yet another song about drugs...which would be a lot less creepy.