I normally don’t like to give interpretations of lyrics, mostly because the music I usually listen to has “stream of consciousness” type lyrics and it’s hardly any use to start interpreting those. But since Jake Bugg has quite a narrative style of writing perhaps some things can be said of his lyrics.
Anyhow, after a few listens I figure the narrator of the story (not necessarily Bugg himself) is actually the one who ends up dead. So when he says “and then they took a guy outside and someone stabbed him with a knife”, the narrator is the one being stabbed. I figure this because the last sentences are “I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked”: the light he’s seen being the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ instead a light of ‘insight’. On this interpretation, which is arguably a bit of a stretch, the words “I’ve seen it all, nothing shocks me anymore after tonight” are quite literally true; if you’re dead, you have seen all you’ll ever see and nothing can shock you anymore. To give this interpretation some credibility, I would recommend checking out the video. SPOILER ALERT: Jake Bugg is not the protagonist in it (as he has been in some of his other videos such as “two fingers”), and the protagonist who is not Bugg ends up being dead, but he only figures this out at the end of the video.
just watched the video. I've always kind of wondered what he meant by "not the kind I would have liked." I never occurred to me he might be writing sort of from someone else's perspective. Trippy.
just watched the video. I've always kind of wondered what he meant by "not the kind I would have liked." I never occurred to me he might be writing sort of from someone else's perspective. Trippy.
I normally don’t like to give interpretations of lyrics, mostly because the music I usually listen to has “stream of consciousness” type lyrics and it’s hardly any use to start interpreting those. But since Jake Bugg has quite a narrative style of writing perhaps some things can be said of his lyrics. Anyhow, after a few listens I figure the narrator of the story (not necessarily Bugg himself) is actually the one who ends up dead. So when he says “and then they took a guy outside and someone stabbed him with a knife”, the narrator is the one being stabbed. I figure this because the last sentences are “I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked”: the light he’s seen being the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ instead a light of ‘insight’. On this interpretation, which is arguably a bit of a stretch, the words “I’ve seen it all, nothing shocks me anymore after tonight” are quite literally true; if you’re dead, you have seen all you’ll ever see and nothing can shock you anymore. To give this interpretation some credibility, I would recommend checking out the video. SPOILER ALERT: Jake Bugg is not the protagonist in it (as he has been in some of his other videos such as “two fingers”), and the protagonist who is not Bugg ends up being dead, but he only figures this out at the end of the video.
just watched the video. I've always kind of wondered what he meant by "not the kind I would have liked." I never occurred to me he might be writing sort of from someone else's perspective. Trippy.
just watched the video. I've always kind of wondered what he meant by "not the kind I would have liked." I never occurred to me he might be writing sort of from someone else's perspective. Trippy.