This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams made real
All of the buildings, all of the cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head
She pictures the broken glass, pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes
Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day
There in the midst of it, so alive and alone
Words support like bone
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Where you're inside out
Dreaming of Mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of Mercy
In your daddy's arms
Pulling out the papers from drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word
Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest, he's the doctor
He can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary's lips
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Where you're inside out
Dreaming of Mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your daddy's arms
Mercy, Mercy, looking for Mercy Street
Looking for Mercy
Mercy, looking for Mercy
Looking for Mercy
Looking for Mercy
Oh, Mercy
Looking for mercy
I'm with the father, is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves on the sea
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams made real
All of the buildings, all of the cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head
She pictures the broken glass, pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes
Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day
There in the midst of it, so alive and alone
Words support like bone
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Where you're inside out
Dreaming of Mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of Mercy
In your daddy's arms
Pulling out the papers from drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word
Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest, he's the doctor
He can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary's lips
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Where you're inside out
Dreaming of Mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
Swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your daddy's arms
Mercy, Mercy, looking for Mercy Street
Looking for Mercy
Mercy, looking for Mercy
Looking for Mercy
Looking for Mercy
Oh, Mercy
Looking for mercy
I'm with the father, is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves on the sea
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The Night We Met
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Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
This is one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard. I listened to it for a long time, and I had no clue what it was. I looked it up on the web about a month ago because it was bugging the crap out of me. Yes, it is for/about Anne Sexton. This is what I got from it:
Anne Sexton was sexually abused by her parents. She was unstable as a child and it only got worse as she grew up. "The dreams made solid and the dreams made real", "all of the buildings and all of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head" refers to her feeling like her dreams will never come true. When she was in her 20's she tried committing suicide with a piece of "broken glass" and went to see a psychiartist not long after. "She pictures the soul with no leak at the seam" refers to her feeling like there was something missing in her life. I think I read somewhere that her parents died while on vaction. Their boat tipped over and they drowned..."let's take the boat out, wait until darkness." "Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey" refers to her looking for mercy in her house in the "suburbs." her psychiatrist encouraged her to write poems to get her anger and sadness out o her system, and it turned out to be what really kept her going in life. The words of her poem "support like bone" in the midst of all the pain in her life. She said in her poem Mercy Street 45 that she was always looking for the street sign... " 'Swear they moved that sign." "Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide mooth, tugging at the darkness, word upon word"... she is shuffling through her papers trying to find a black sheet, and she jots down her dark feelings. It said in the biography that I took at from the library that her parents urged her not to tell anyone about the things that happened at home. After they died, she felt like she could finally let everything out. She went to a church and confessed to a "a priest--he's the doctor, he can handle the shocks." The shocks are referring to the cruel things her parents did to her. "Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips, of kissing Mary's lips"...Mary is Anne Sexton's mother. The biography said that she was always afraid of her parents abandonning her, so she would always shake... "the tremble in the hips." In the second verse, Peter mentions "the steam." After her thrid suicide attempt, Anne finally died. She was killed by carbon monoxide in her home. Carbon monoxide is invisible to the naked eye, but steam and carbon monoxide are both gases.
Well, that is what I think the story is about.
-Miranda
<br /> Could it be that when the song says: " she pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam, she pictures a soul with no leak at the seam" It means that she thinks that even though she is suicidal and she knows it, she thinks it is ok to commit suicide and her soul will not suffer the eternal consequences "with no leak" that her soul will remain intact because she is the victim of her situation and of what her parents did to her?????<br /> Also; the paragraph about "pale green and gray, the suburbs, the light of day, so alive and alone words support like bone" means that she doesn´t feel safe or at peace at all and writing is definitely what keeps her from breaking down and falling out of this world.<br /> I think that the "mercy street" actually never existed, it is the ideal place or home that she yerns she had grown up in. Mercy street is the place were she can be happy, innocent and normal, wearing her inside out being this her normal childhood she didn´t get. A place were she feels safe in her loving and caring father´s arms, BUT they moved the sign because she can´t find what she never had. If you think this through It´s so sad........<br /> <br /> please let me know if this makes any sense to anyone jejeje<br />
Wow Miranda, you have nailed that. Great writing too. Had to signup to tell you that!<br /> <br /> I've been carrying around about half of that meaning with me for years, thanks for lighting up the even darker parts.<br /> <br /> You reviewed any more Gabriel? Might take a look
Gabriel himself was abused as a kid by some school mates, which is, I’m sure, easier to live with than being abused by your own parents, but a tough situation anyway; he talked about it candidly in a 2006 TED talk. I guess he feels a strong identification with Sexton, so no wonder he wrote a song about her.