One Red Rose Lyrics

Lyric discussion by OldMan222 

Cover art for One Red Rose lyrics by John Prine

The line- The kitchen light fell asleep on the bedroom floor\nalways bugged me, I decided it was actually\n \nThe rain came down on the tin roof\nHardly a sound was left from the birthday party\nThe kids and I fell asleep on the bedroom floor.\n\nI consider it a requiem for a dead wife.\nThe other verses mentioniong her were a dream sequence and then memories.\n\nthe red rose was in his Bible, signifying his lost love.\nThe birthday party was the first one after she had passed.\nListening to the organ music and the structure, it sounds like a funeral dirge to me. That\'s just how I play it and sing it.\nIt makes more sense than a light going to sleep.

@OldMan222 IDK why I’m saying anything but it’s clearly a metaphor and it’s beautiful. It’s just like saying it’s raining cats and dogs… It’s comparing one thing to another and it’s very beautiful because it’s late at night and the only light on in the house is in the kitchen, so it’s just a dreamy image that it falls asleep there behind the curtain on the bedroom floor…

Think about my Mexican home where he says the windows feel no pain… Heat lightning burned the sky like alcohol… He’s making a...

@OldMan222 Lastly, I completely disagree that this is a eulogy, especially after seeing the comments from multiple people listing exactly what John said about this song. I’ve been listening to John Prine for 50 years now and even to this day I’m still figuring stuff out that he says. I’ve been kind of on a quest to find the meaning behind everything because I saw the video where he said a couple of years before he died that his whole repertoire of music was kind of like a joke, and he just hopes that his fans get the punchline...