It's not quite a bullshit metaphor.
Story goes like this, and this is very, very brief:
We have Jason Pierce, AKA J. Spaceman, who was dating Spiritualized's keyboardist Kate Radley. However, unbeknown to Pierce, Radley had gone and secretly married Richard Ashcroft, who you may know of because of his band The Verve. This was shortly before Ladies & Gentlemen... was released, causing Pierce to jump from recreational user to complete and total addict. This is where lines like “Sometimes have my breakfast right off of a mirror / And sometime have it straight out of a bottle” ("Home of the Brave") and the John Prine reference in "Cop Shoot Cop..." ("Hey man, there's a hole in my arm where all the money goes") come from. And, of course, "Come Together."
Without context, Ladies and Gentlemen... stands as a record of the howling pangs of the lovelorn, but in context (keep in mind, Radley was still in the band for the record), it serves as the permanent article of what can go wrong with somebody.
There are no real metaphors here. Little Johnny is a fucked-up user, and he doesn't hurt, but he doesn't feel a lot of anything else either. He even goes as far as to refer to him as "Little J," for God's sake. It's pretty straightforward.
It's not quite a bullshit metaphor. Story goes like this, and this is very, very brief: We have Jason Pierce, AKA J. Spaceman, who was dating Spiritualized's keyboardist Kate Radley. However, unbeknown to Pierce, Radley had gone and secretly married Richard Ashcroft, who you may know of because of his band The Verve. This was shortly before Ladies & Gentlemen... was released, causing Pierce to jump from recreational user to complete and total addict. This is where lines like “Sometimes have my breakfast right off of a mirror / And sometime have it straight out of a bottle” ("Home of the Brave") and the John Prine reference in "Cop Shoot Cop..." ("Hey man, there's a hole in my arm where all the money goes") come from. And, of course, "Come Together."
Without context, Ladies and Gentlemen... stands as a record of the howling pangs of the lovelorn, but in context (keep in mind, Radley was still in the band for the record), it serves as the permanent article of what can go wrong with somebody.
There are no real metaphors here. Little Johnny is a fucked-up user, and he doesn't hurt, but he doesn't feel a lot of anything else either. He even goes as far as to refer to him as "Little J," for God's sake. It's pretty straightforward.