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Where the road is dark, and the seed is sowed
Where the gun is cocked, and the bullet's cold
Where the miles are marked in the blood and gold
I'll meet you further on up the road
Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring
My lucky graveyard boots, and song to sing
I got a song to sing, to keep me out of the cold
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Further on up the road
further on up the road
Where the way is dark and the night is cold
One sunny morning we'll rise, I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time
Searching through the dust, lookin' for a sign
If there's a light up ahead, well brother I don't know
But I got this fever burnin' in my soul
So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
One sunny morning we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Where the gun is cocked, and the bullet's cold
Where the miles are marked in the blood and gold
I'll meet you further on up the road
Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring
My lucky graveyard boots, and song to sing
I got a song to sing, to keep me out of the cold
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Further on up the road
further on up the road
Where the way is dark and the night is cold
One sunny morning we'll rise, I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time
Searching through the dust, lookin' for a sign
If there's a light up ahead, well brother I don't know
But I got this fever burnin' in my soul
So let's take the good times as they go
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
Further on up the road
One sunny mornin' we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
One sunny morning we'll rise I know
And I'll meet you further on up the road
Lyrics submitted by deathbear
Track duration: 05:55
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This song is about the experience of a soldier in combat. This is a song to his enemy and that point in time when he will kill, or be killed by him.
The 1st stanza is about finding oneself a victim of a circumstance created by your nation’s path – completely beyond one soldier’s control. This situation is as old as history… an experience countless many have been victim too. Bruce is saying… as a people, in our response to 9/11 we have not changed much since those ancient times when war was born.
The 2nd stanza is about the signs and tokens of a soldier. What you have to know about combat is, in order to be effective a soldier has to 1st accept that his already dead. Only then can he move forward… do his job… protect his buddies. When a soldier survives the horrors of battle his mind seeks the reason for his survival… but there is no reason many times, why one soldier is killed and another survives – it’s random. So he connects his survival to the tokens he carried though the experience. There is no sense in this, it’s a completely irrational response to circumstances to powerful to absorb. As this goes on, life takes on a fatalistic, surreal, humorous quality and a soldier becomes fanatically superstitious. He believes these tokens actually protect and keep him. They give him the confidence to keep moving (down the road). His dead man’s suit is clearly his uniform… his smiling skull ring is his mocking death (and hearkens to his unit insignia)… his grave yard boots are for sneaking past death… to keep him from touching the ground.
The 3rd stanza is analogous. In its literal context it’s about being on patrol – search and destroy, the anticipation building to conflict. In another, it’s about trying to absorb and rationalize the horrible acts he has been a part of. He has his nation telling him he did right… But his innocence is ruined and his soul carries the weight of his actions. He knows he must pay for his sins at some time (Down the road).
The last stanza reveals the soldiers certain knowledge that in this life or the next, they will, must, reconcile and embrace. This is the only path that leads beyond the horrors of war. It is the only redemption left for those who go to battle… and for those who send them - regardless of how slight their contribution.
I think Bruce is telling us, regardless of politics or religion, when you boil it all down and come to terms, we are all a part of this soldiers experience… that we all carry this sin and this burden. We are the ones who sent him there.
That’s what I got out of it…
The one thing we are given is a path to take, the choice whether to keep surviving and putting one foot in front of the other, or not. Some make their way with violence or greed or both, whether trying to get ahead or just get by, and their ways are in evidence all along the way, but it doesn't really change the road they must travel along with everyone else; you might just as well pass the time singing, taking it easy, enjoying yourself any way you can find along the way.
Regardless, we never get to wherever the road leads; we're born on the road and we die on the road. Some say they know where it goes, some have doubts or don't care. Aside from inspiration to keep on going, it ultimately doesn't matter whether a destination really exists or not, if we're never gonna get there anyway. You don't have to know where the road goes in order for it to get you there, not like there's any other road to travel anyway.
No matter how well and long we keep walking, eventually our walk comes to an end; we're already dead from the moment we're born. These clothes and shoes we're wearing belong to the inevitably deceased. Those who have walked before us, we will someday find dead and cold, just as those who walk behind us will someday find us dead and cold. We'll only cross paths with them again if there's another life after this one. Until then, every new day you wake up is another good day you get to spend on the road.
A timeless entity from somewhere during the gold rush and this entity is saying "I will get you sometime," with the vague statement "I'll meet you further on up the road" collecting on people's misdeeds.
The description of his attire (dead man's suit, smiling skull ring, lucky graveyard boots) sounds sinister. The line "one sunny morning, we will rise I know" brings the idea of him forecasting when its all catching up home.
However I feel this immediate imagery makes more sense when taken in context of the album, while maybe not about 9/11, certainly seems strongly influenced by the Christian themes of the album. If you see the desert as possibly an allusion to Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, or perhaps a more broad ‘desert of the soul’, a concept backed up by the lines ‘Searching through the dust, looking for a sign… but I got this fever burning in my soul’. In this context the original imagery of a gunslinger/vagrant could be seen as a state of mind, being both an ideal of individuality & self-reliance while also being very violent and morally grey, perhaps representing these qualities in the average person. When this image goes through the desert as an allegory for temptation, self-reflection, or hardship then lines such as ‘If there’s a light up ahead, well brother I don’t know’ ‘let’s take the good times as they go’ & ‘One sunny morning we’ll rise I know’ begin to become as possible allusion for the search for God, morality, or simply the self.
I guess I think this song is about is about putting one’s life on hold, sending it further on up the road to wait for the narrator to find some kind of answer, and holding onto the optimism that things will work out in order to make such self-reflection possible. Just my opinion though ^_^
"I'll meet you further on up the road" is a promise to make it through. It's a farewell put off (what do you say to the ones you leave behind when you head off into danger?). It's also an acknowledgement of something better no matter what -- "one sunny morning, we'll rise I know" is refusing to acknowledge the finality of mortality.
Personally, in the context of 9/11, I've always seen it as a song about a military man confronting the war ahead. However, I believe this song pre-dates 9/11 (possibly from the Tom Joad era?).
Then I heard the Rising version. I wasn't expecting it to be better. It was.
Everybody wants to be wealthy. For some people the search for wealth becomes its' own stigma. This is clearly a song about gold fever, and how the character in the song is obsessed with finding gold in the desert. Picture him wandering the desert with his spike and hammer, chiselling away at rocks, looking for a claim. The opening stanza gives us an insight into the rest of the song, and the rest of the song follows suite.
He doesn't know if he's ever going to find a life beyond his obsession, a happier life in the future. But he isn't looking that far ahead. Right now he's only looking for gold, his driving ambition.