Down In The Tube Station At Midnight Lyrics

Lyric discussion by droeh 

Cover art for Down In The Tube Station At Midnight lyrics by Jam, The

Does anyone else think that the man dies and is looking back at the inncodent from after death?

Here's why i think so:

He's clearly travelling home at dinner time "She'll be lining up the cutlery". Yet he is still in the tube station at midnight. Can you think of a reason why he should still be there about 6 hours later?

He is talking in the past tense about lying, concious, on the ground "I glanced back on my life". This suggests that time has elaspsed since the end of the attack. Yet there is no talk of him recovering.

The many hints that this attack could be fatal: "Jesus Saves", "My life swam around me" and "drowned me". This would be overly-dramatic if it was just a case of a man getting beat up.

The word "midnight": What is midnight? Its the end of a day/ start of a new one. This may be a metaphor for the end of a life. Its midnight for a reason, I'm guessin that is it.

Finally, and this is speculative and I may very well be wrong in this assumption, but is the London underground not shut at midnight? In Glasgow, where I live, the subway and inner-city train network shut at 1130pm. If he is still in the station at midnight he must be dead. There's no way they'd lock him in, so the only explaination is that its a crime-scene and his body has not yet been moved.

London Underground lines often shut down at around 0130-0200, not 2330. Especially in Zone 1.

So it was legitimately at 0000, as the pubs would have chucked out at 2330 (2345 to allow for 15 minutes drinking up time).

You could be onto something, in the Seventies the tube closed much earlier but at midnight it would be around the time of the last train, hence more isolated. The thing is to can analyze stuff too much. For example if he was a city worker on his way home, he would in all probability have a season ticket and not have to buy a ticket.

Also: Headlines of death and sorrow, they tell of tomorrow Madmen on the rampage.

It filled my eyes, ears, nose and mouth It blocked all my senses Couldn't see, hear, speak any longer

His...

@droeh This is how I view it as well. It is even more horrifying with some of the last words of the song " I glanced back on my life, and thought about my wife 'Cause they took the keys, and she'll think it's me" I view this as him stating that the thugs will then go to his house and cause great harm to his wife -- when she hears the door open with the keys, she will think it is her husband but rather it will be a Clockwork Orange....