Eeh, not riding the subway, or working in a rock quarry, but working BUILDING the subway. He's a tunnel-worker, he goes underground and works all day in the dark while thinking of this woman: "...when the lids come down, you're all I see."
"...cast my pearls at the unpaved street..." isn't about giving his 'pearls' (money) to her, but about how he's spending his life (his pearls) doing this backbreaking and boring work.
She's The Queen of All The Surface Streets because she's what his life is about when he's not working underground. And the surface is, while he's down underground, a sort of fairyland, another realm.
I think it's presumptuous to suppose that she's a prostitute, rather than that he simply loves her and wants to give her things and appreciates her attention.
This song has, I think, a strong subtext. It follows the Spanish (Arabic influenced) tradition of a love song that is ostensibly about romantic love between a man and a woman but is also about a man's love and longing for God -- the day of labouring being the work and pain of living, followed by "I emerge from the darkness and there You stand."
Eeh, not riding the subway, or working in a rock quarry, but working BUILDING the subway. He's a tunnel-worker, he goes underground and works all day in the dark while thinking of this woman: "...when the lids come down, you're all I see."
"...cast my pearls at the unpaved street..." isn't about giving his 'pearls' (money) to her, but about how he's spending his life (his pearls) doing this backbreaking and boring work.
She's The Queen of All The Surface Streets because she's what his life is about when he's not working underground. And the surface is, while he's down underground, a sort of fairyland, another realm.
I think it's presumptuous to suppose that she's a prostitute, rather than that he simply loves her and wants to give her things and appreciates her attention.
This song has, I think, a strong subtext. It follows the Spanish (Arabic influenced) tradition of a love song that is ostensibly about romantic love between a man and a woman but is also about a man's love and longing for God -- the day of labouring being the work and pain of living, followed by "I emerge from the darkness and there You stand."