Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Hold On to Yourself

Oh man, Nick Cave's lyrical genius stuns me yet again. What scares me is that I actually get this without even thinking about it:

I’m so far away from you
I’m pacing up and down my room
Does Jesus only love a man who loses?
I turn on the radio
There’s some cat on the saxophone
Laying down a litany of excuses

There’s madhouse longing in my baby’s eyes
She rubs a lamp between her thighs
And hopes the genie comes out singing
And she lives in some forgotten song
And moves like she is zombie-strong
Breathes steady as the pendulum keeps swinging

You better hold on to yourself

Well, cities rust and fall to ruin
Factories close and cars go cruising
In and around the borders of her vision
She says oh woah woah woah
As Jesus makes the flowers grow
All around the scene of her collision

Oh you know, yes I would
I would hold on to yourself

In the middle of the night
I try my best to chase outside
The phantoms and the ghosts and the fairy-girls
On 1001 nights like this
She mutters open sesame and Ali Baba and his forty thieves
Launch her off the face of the world

Well, you know
One day, I’ll come back
And I’ll hold on to yourself

Babe, I’m 1000 miles away
And I just don’t know what to say
‘Cause Jesus only loves a man who bruises
But darling we can clearly see
It’s all life and fire and lunacy
And excuses and excuses and excuses

Well, you know if I could I would
Yeah, I would lie right down
And I’d hold on to yourself
Yeah, I would lie right down
And I would hold on to yourself

One day I’ll come back to you
And I’ll hold on to yourself
Yeah, I’m gonna come back
Gonna lie down
And I’ll hold on to yourself

Feel free to listen on my muxtape (on the right). Tell me what you think it means in the comments section. I'll comment later - I want to see if it says to you what it says to me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no freakin clue. I thought at first he was writing from the perspective a dead man (Lazarus maybe?), meaning that the coming back he speaks to is a return to life, but after reading it a second time I'm not sure. And I call myself a songwriter. Whatever.

-Bowman

Seven Wicked Demons said...

Bowman, I hope I didn't confuse you by telling you about the Lazarus concept - that was more for the album than this song. I think you got that, though.

I just looked online to what people are interpreting - how incredibly off the mark:

"I s'pose it's about a guy who loves someone but she's too busy sleeping around to notice him?" Yeah, no.

"it seems to be about a relationship living amongst a menagerie of problems. Insanity, loneliness, pride, while he has reached a conclusion that all these qualms are pathetic excuses for doing better. As if he's herd them so many times now he has no more sympathy or apathy." I'm not even sure that makes grammatical sense, let alone substantive sense.

Anonymous said...

so... what is it if you're so sure of yourself?