I agree tempguy, Waits can paint vivid pictures in the mind with just a handful of words.
In this song, the way this story is told is so haunting that it sends chills through the body.
When asked about the song in an interview, Waits said "The sins of the father will be visited upon the son. Everybody knows that."
This song is not only about the sins of a father being passed to the son, but the sins of humankind being passed to a generation.
One man's murder and judgement is illustrated in the song, "Night is falling like a bloody axe," "Carving out a future with a gun and an axe," "A long black over coat will show no stain," "I'm way beyond the gavel and the laws of man","They'll hang me in the morning on a scaffold yea big,"
"To dance upon nothing to the tyborn jig." The tyborn jig is the dance done at the end of a hangman's noose, coined in Tyborn, England where legendary scaffolds executed scores of people to the entertainment of the masses throughout the centuries.
Humankind's treachery and lack of justice is illustrated when he sings "The worlds not easy the blind man said,
Turns on nothing but money and dread" and "Everybody knows that the game was rigged,
Justice wears suspenders and a powdered wig." One could be looking into a mirror when he states this line, "wicked are the branches on the tree of mankind."
What is a generation to do with the bloodstained rags left over by a history of evil?
"I'm gonna wash the sins of my Father
I'm gonna wash the sins of my Mother
I'm gonna wash the sins of my Brother
Till the water runs clear"
Great run down. Waits is definitely rifting on the themes of judgement and inherited debt. In my opinion it's purposely left ambiguous whether it's against the laws of God or the laws of Man, but I think it's telling that he references the American justice system as having only one eye:
Great run down. Waits is definitely rifting on the themes of judgement and inherited debt. In my opinion it's purposely left ambiguous whether it's against the laws of God or the laws of Man, but I think it's telling that he references the American justice system as having only one eye:
'The star spangled glitter of his one good eye'
'The star spangled glitter of his one good eye'
as if the ancient law of an eye for an eye has already been played out.
as if the ancient law of an eye for an eye has already been played out.
I agree tempguy, Waits can paint vivid pictures in the mind with just a handful of words.
In this song, the way this story is told is so haunting that it sends chills through the body.
When asked about the song in an interview, Waits said "The sins of the father will be visited upon the son. Everybody knows that."
This song is not only about the sins of a father being passed to the son, but the sins of humankind being passed to a generation.
One man's murder and judgement is illustrated in the song, "Night is falling like a bloody axe," "Carving out a future with a gun and an axe," "A long black over coat will show no stain," "I'm way beyond the gavel and the laws of man","They'll hang me in the morning on a scaffold yea big," "To dance upon nothing to the tyborn jig." The tyborn jig is the dance done at the end of a hangman's noose, coined in Tyborn, England where legendary scaffolds executed scores of people to the entertainment of the masses throughout the centuries.
Humankind's treachery and lack of justice is illustrated when he sings "The worlds not easy the blind man said, Turns on nothing but money and dread" and "Everybody knows that the game was rigged, Justice wears suspenders and a powdered wig." One could be looking into a mirror when he states this line, "wicked are the branches on the tree of mankind."
What is a generation to do with the bloodstained rags left over by a history of evil?
"I'm gonna wash the sins of my Father I'm gonna wash the sins of my Mother I'm gonna wash the sins of my Brother Till the water runs clear"
@bluesbegger123
@bluesbegger123
Great run down. Waits is definitely rifting on the themes of judgement and inherited debt. In my opinion it's purposely left ambiguous whether it's against the laws of God or the laws of Man, but I think it's telling that he references the American justice system as having only one eye:
Great run down. Waits is definitely rifting on the themes of judgement and inherited debt. In my opinion it's purposely left ambiguous whether it's against the laws of God or the laws of Man, but I think it's telling that he references the American justice system as having only one eye:
'The star spangled glitter of his one good eye'
'The star spangled glitter of his one good eye'
as if the ancient law of an eye for an eye has already been played out.
as if the ancient law of an eye for an eye has already been played out.