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After that confrontation
You left me wringing my cold hands
We shared some information
We might not recover from
And I watch your convictions
Melt like ice cubes in an ocean
You were so poorly cast as a malcontent
You've got them all on your side
That just makes more for doubt to slaughter
"I never knew he thought that!"
I heard you say falling out of the van
"Don't ask for his opinion
They ought to drown him in holy water!"
Will you remember my reply
When your high horse dies?
We'd like to go the distance
But not a one of us it gonna
You see nobody is wise enough
To turn this ancient boat around
These are the muddy waters
I'm swimming in to make a living
That I might drown in them
Should come as no surprise
You want them all on your side
That just makes more for doubt to slaughter
"I never knew he thought that!"
I heard you say falling out of the van
"Don't ask for his opinion
They ought to drown him in holy water!"
Will you remember my reply
When your high horse dies?
You've got them all on your side
That just leaves more for doubt to slaughter
"I never knew he thought that!"
I heard you say falling out of the van
"Don't ask for his opinion
They ought to drown him in holy water!"
Will you remember my reply?
One finger parallel to the sky...
You left me wringing my cold hands
We shared some information
We might not recover from
And I watch your convictions
Melt like ice cubes in an ocean
You were so poorly cast as a malcontent
You've got them all on your side
That just makes more for doubt to slaughter
"I never knew he thought that!"
I heard you say falling out of the van
"Don't ask for his opinion
They ought to drown him in holy water!"
Will you remember my reply
When your high horse dies?
We'd like to go the distance
But not a one of us it gonna
You see nobody is wise enough
To turn this ancient boat around
These are the muddy waters
I'm swimming in to make a living
That I might drown in them
Should come as no surprise
You want them all on your side
That just makes more for doubt to slaughter
"I never knew he thought that!"
I heard you say falling out of the van
"Don't ask for his opinion
They ought to drown him in holy water!"
Will you remember my reply
When your high horse dies?
You've got them all on your side
That just leaves more for doubt to slaughter
"I never knew he thought that!"
I heard you say falling out of the van
"Don't ask for his opinion
They ought to drown him in holy water!"
Will you remember my reply?
One finger parallel to the sky...
Lyrics submitted by doobeydoobeydude
Track duration: 03:20
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favorite line "will you remember my reply when your high horse dies."
"turn this Ancient boat around" - Socrates was an Athenian, and they were well known for their overwhelming naval superiority over all of Peloponnesia and Hellenas. Clever use of imagery.
"You've got them all on your side" / "They are to drown him in Holy Water" - Socrates was charged with (1) corrupting the youth of Athens and (2) Impiety towards the Pagan Gods.
"Dont ask for his opinion" - Socrates made a career out of walking around and dismantling other people's beliefs while never taking a stand of his own. There is almost no record of Socrates laying any sort of claim.
There's more, but those excerpts are the most glaring. It's a defense of Socrates who was one of the first documented cases of somebody being silenced because of their threat to normalcy and the status quo. It fits too well, and Mercer is clearly clever enough to pull it off.
"You want them all on your side/That just leaves more for doubt to slaughter" I took to mean if everyone stroked your ego you have that much further to fall once self doubt inevitably creeps in.
And then there's the "falling out of the van" and "muddy waters I'm swimming in to make a living" which made me think that it was about a band and not a relationship.
The references to high horses, holy water, and opinions would be about the snobby piousness of some music critics.
"Will you remember my reply when your high horse dies" could be him saying that when those critics are unemployed, the song (maybe even the band) will still be around. His "reply" being the "one finger parallel to the sky" which I assumed was flipping the bird even though the parallel bit is questionable.
What do you guys think about that?
I disagree with what ppl are saying about how the girlfriend has a whole group of people on her side, though. I interpreted the line as the girlfriend wanting to believe certain things are true, which may not be. That's why the next line is "more for doubt to slaughter"-if she is presented with the truth, she will start to doubt her ideas. Slaughtering refers to failing to believe an idea, therefore killing your conviction to it. It seems like he thinks that she is stubbornly holding on to beliefs she "wants on her side" but aren't actually true. (Perhaps she blames him for something he didn't do and he is annoyed...?) He is telling her to start look at the situation reasonably and logically.
I was reading these post wanting to make a similar point. What a hotly contested line!
I'm adamant HE is flipping someone off.
Chelsea: you are right that its difficult to define what is parallel to the sky, but a round finger would be at best concentric, not parallel, a pointed finger would be parallel to the horizon. A raised middle finger is the only thing that could even be considered! If you think of the sky as stretching upwards from the surface of the earth out to space, anything vertical is parallel.
He's flipping someone off.
not perilous through..
and i dont understand that line, tbh. maybe im reading too much into it, but in order to figure out which way is "parallel to the sky" you have to define sky, which in itself is a very hard task to accomplishment.
As i see it, the sky as a whole is everything surrounding the earth. atmosphere, space, etc. that seems to the textbook definition, anyways.
and that is almost a hollow sphere around the earth.
following? i hope so.
so a finger PARALLEL to that.. is.. what?
its not horizontal - thats parallel to the horizon - and it cant be vertical because the sky is not vertical, its all around us.
the finger would have to be completely spherical as the sky is around earth, to be parallel. and, in the direct centre of the hollow inside said sphere.
so, again. probably reading too much into it, but i think they were trying something clever there and the meaning of the actual words went over some peoples heads.
as for the last line, it seems more like the other person is pointing the blame finger, upon a high horse... parallel to the sky in both the literal sense and also in that god can be seen as judgemental and spiteful.