I love this song, like most people who have ever heard it. It's universal because we can all relate to that feeling of being a stranger or an outsider in life, and it's powerful to hear another weirdo reaching out to you through the dark. :)
Here are some general comments made about the lyrics by Tim Booth for The Guardian:
"The opening line, "I'll sing myself to sleep, a song from the darkest hour," refers to my insomnia. I was writing at 2-3am. The lines "Now I'm relieved to hear that you've been to some far-out places, it's hard to carry on when you feel all alone" were me thinking of Patti Smith and Doris Lessing.
They both connected to me when I felt very alone and misunderstood. Throughout my teens, I'd had an undiagnosed illness and my skin was almost yellow. When I was 21, I'd almost died, so I was feeling pretty tortured in those days.
That line "I swung back down again" is about the mood swings I used to go through. I was meditating a lot to try and find some meaning to it all, and you can get quite high on that. Then you come back down to reality. I was celibate, no alcohol, vegetarian and living a monkish life, but when you're meditating for days at a time you get to some pretty far-out places. So "If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor" is about the places I reached through meditation – the riches are psychological. When I'm writing, I let this stuff pour out spontaneously. If I start thinking about it too much, I usually bugger it up.
The lyrics about empathy with the sick and mentally ill were probably my way of wanting to be a beacon for other people in the way Smith and Lessing were for me. The line "Those who find themselves ridiculous, sit down next to me …" somehow stops the song being pompous."
I love this song, like most people who have ever heard it. It's universal because we can all relate to that feeling of being a stranger or an outsider in life, and it's powerful to hear another weirdo reaching out to you through the dark. :)
Here are some general comments made about the lyrics by Tim Booth for The Guardian:
"The opening line, "I'll sing myself to sleep, a song from the darkest hour," refers to my insomnia. I was writing at 2-3am. The lines "Now I'm relieved to hear that you've been to some far-out places, it's hard to carry on when you feel all alone" were me thinking of Patti Smith and Doris Lessing.
They both connected to me when I felt very alone and misunderstood. Throughout my teens, I'd had an undiagnosed illness and my skin was almost yellow. When I was 21, I'd almost died, so I was feeling pretty tortured in those days.
That line "I swung back down again" is about the mood swings I used to go through. I was meditating a lot to try and find some meaning to it all, and you can get quite high on that. Then you come back down to reality. I was celibate, no alcohol, vegetarian and living a monkish life, but when you're meditating for days at a time you get to some pretty far-out places. So "If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor" is about the places I reached through meditation – the riches are psychological. When I'm writing, I let this stuff pour out spontaneously. If I start thinking about it too much, I usually bugger it up.
The lyrics about empathy with the sick and mentally ill were probably my way of wanting to be a beacon for other people in the way Smith and Lessing were for me. The line "Those who find themselves ridiculous, sit down next to me …" somehow stops the song being pompous."
@poweroutage The comment of a very erudite person, love it!!
@poweroutage The comment of a very erudite person, love it!!