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After all
These implements
And texts designed by intellects
We're vexed to find
Evidently there's still so much that hides
And though
The saints dub us divine
In ancient fading lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to
Pluck from the vine
I'll try hard not to pretend
Allow myself to mock defense
As I step into the night
Since I don't have time nor mind
To figure out the nursery rhymes
That helped us out in making sense of our lives
The cruel, uneventful state
of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out
I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
Mercy's eyes are blue
And when she places them
In front of you
Nothing holds a
Roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love
These implements
And texts designed by intellects
We're vexed to find
Evidently there's still so much that hides
And though
The saints dub us divine
In ancient fading lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to
Pluck from the vine
I'll try hard not to pretend
Allow myself to mock defense
As I step into the night
Since I don't have time nor mind
To figure out the nursery rhymes
That helped us out in making sense of our lives
The cruel, uneventful state
of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out
I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night
Mercy's eyes are blue
And when she places them
In front of you
Nothing holds a
Roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love
Lyrics submitted by doobeydoobeydude
Track duration: 04:25
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"After all
These implements
And texts designed by intellects
We're vexed to find
Evidently there's still so much that hides"
continuing this line of thought the "Mercy" bit to me is simple:
"Mercy's eyes are blue
And when she places them
In front of you
Nothing holds a
Roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel"
Mercy´s eyes are the color blue, that description is true but not accurate. It doesn´t explain the warmth he feels when they look at him (hold a roman candle to = enlighten the meaning). He might describe them perfectly using words, but in the end no matter how precise he is, the true feeling he gets from looking in her eyes is deeper than whatever term he might choose.
Hope you enjoy my point of view!!!
"hmm.. just a thought... what if "mercy's eyes are blue" was showing how rare mercy is? Blue eyes are rare in humans, being quite recessive, and it could be showing that mercy cannot always be there, but, when it is, it is beautiful."
i like the idea, but i personally don't believe this to be the case. at first, i don't think mercer wants to tell us how much he likes blue eyes or that the rare occurance of mercy makes it more beautiful. it seems a bit far fetched in this particular context. i think it's more about being "blue-eyed" in the sense of naivety, which needs to be understood metaphorically above all. as a personification of mercy by giving it a human quality it also fits into the very part of the lyrics that it is located in. that part is about somewhat irrational ideas that rather affect us on an emotional level than on a cognitive one.
to mercer, life itself is not all about concepts and structures that can be depicted as logical patterns. mercer values all those "ancient lines" given by the great philosophers and scientists in general, such as saint simon himself was one, but in the end they are not more than "nursery rhymes" (that CAN help us "make a sense of our lives" though), so he doesn't mind when one is "wiped out", which i understand as a theory being turned down for whatever reasons, eg. being outdated and therefore abandoned.
this could also contain religion, but i don't necessarily see religious theories mentioned in particular. "the saints" are saints of saint simon's kind, one of the fathers of socialist theory and humanitarian in nature. "texts designed by intellects" seems to refer less to the bible or other religious scripture than to works by thinkers of a modern age.
the line that i find most important and that has always fascinated me the most is the enormous sentence after the first refrain:
"Since I don't have time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes that helped us out in making sense of our lives – the cruel, uneventful state of apathy releases me – I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out."
as i tried to illustrate by punctuation, i think it is necessary to read all of this as one single sentence (this actually was an idea of a friend who first introduced me to the shins). since mercer doesn't have the time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes, he doesn't mind if one is wiped out. the state of apathy, a thing that mercer has stated his personal sympathy about, relieves him from the pain of dealing with "texts designed by intellects." the pain occurs when we are "vexed to find" that there is still "so much that hides". none of the said texts and sentiments (which i interpret as humanitarian ideas essentially) can explain the concept of life and what it contains to a degree thoroughly enough to be satisfactory. there simply is no "measuring of" "the solemn warmth you feel inside," since nobody can define abstract things such as love or passion, things that in mercer's eyes are more essential to our existence than anything, but at the same time impossible to depict in language with rationality alone. the pain is also a result of how hard it is to "pluck the sentiments from the vines", meaning figuring out the sometimes very complex theoretical approaches to life, isolating the core arguments of a theory and investigate their validity.
many thanks to "elegantgraces" for the hint of mercer's affection for elliot smith, because now this affection can serve as another example of a rather irrational fact that can nonetheless become important to one's life.
the chorus is a statement of how mercer approaches life:
"I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night"
when he "rids himself of the pretense" of the above stated (the impossibility of completely explaining life rationally, one might say) and does not try to defend himself with or hide behind "texts designed by intellects," he can approach life like stepping into the night that life is; stepping into the dark and unknown means letting things come as they are, not "batten down" oneself and evade all the obstacles of it. because in the end, "nothing else is love."
i love mercer's life-affirming and not at all nihilistic position, based on the idea of ambivalence as understood by eugen bleuler, the person who coined the word "ambivalence" as essential to every part of human existence. there is no either-or. you wouldn't and shouldn't want to decide between rationality and irrationality, for both play important roles. by refusing to accept wisdom as the highest principle, this song shows true wisdom.
i think mercer and the shins never again showed such great skills in songwriting and composing. the way how he creates incredibly strong and profound sentences, fits them into verses and combines them with those melodies that define the distinctive shins-feeling of juvenile naivety and atmospheric beauty simply impresses me deeply and makes this one of my all-time favorites.
First off, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, also known as Saint Simon, exposed essays regarding a deep belief in cleaning out religion of its paranormal dogmas and focusing it on the moral values. (No one else seemed to mind the title of the song...)
I think Mercer defines the bible stories as the "lullabies that helped us out in making sense of our lives"
He "values them but won't cry everytime one is wiped out" because he realizes the importance of it's moral value (in making sense of life) but identifies them as stories nonetheless. This also explains the "I'll try hard not to pretend, allow myself no mock defense."
About mercy's eyes: I believe he's referring to the comfort of Faith. Nothing holds a roman candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside when you believe you are safe, protected by (a) God. I think Mercer sometimes wishes he could feel that embrace of Mercy, opposed to what he calls a "cruel state of apathy", yet, that state "releases" him.
What do you guys think?
And when she places them
In front of you
Nothing holds a
Roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love
the shins are what got me thru high school and nowadays keeping me from going nuts at work lol
After all
These implements
And texts designed by intellects
We're vexed to find
Evidently there's still so much that hides
It's about scientific progress, and how even though we have learned an astonishing amount in the modern era there are still so many questions left unanswered.
And though
The saints dub us divine
In ancient fading lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to
Pluck from the vine
Religion says man is divine. But the guidance it offers is clouded in mystery. The truth remains elusive.
I'll try hard not to pretend
Allow myself to mock defense
As I step into the night
The night does symbolize the unknown. He is stating that in his search for truth, he will try his best to not cling to lies or illusions for comfort.
Since I don't have time nor mind
To figure out the nursery rhymes
That helped us out in making sense of our lives
The cruel, uneventful state
of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out
I'll try hard not to give in
"Nursery rhymes" is referring to myths(biblical included) and fairytales as well. Tales are another source of knowledge that, like religion have an elusive truth that can be understood both analytically and be felt. He is rejecting these as a source of guidance in life because sifting through them to find the kernel of truth hidden within is too time consuming and he just doesn't care enough. Furthermore he won't mourn every time the knowledge of the past disappears because it is becoming irrelevant in the modern context and wasn't that great to him anyway.
Mercy's eyes are blue
And when she places them
In front of you
Nothing holds a
Roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love
Here is where it comes together to reveal more of classact's points. Mercy, could be referring to an actual woman that gave him comfort or a symbol for the comfort one takes in just living. All these unanswered questions can leave you with a void. In the end it is love and living your life fully that makes you feel whole.
"apathy releases me" is a clever line, since strong feelings like love or hate binds a person to the object of these feelings. He experiences the freedom of carelessness.
"After all
These implements
And texts designed by intellects
We're vexed to find
Evidently there's still so much that hides"
Meaning: The more we learn (from science, presumably), the more we know how little we really know.
"And though
The saints dub us divine
In ancient fading lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to
Pluck from the vine"
Meaning: The idea (sentiment) of us being divine beings is cute, but not based on reality. Also, religion is fading out as the ancient lines from our societies.
"I'll try hard not to pretend
Allow myself to mock defense
As I step into the night"
This part is about death.
Meaning: Though it is tempting to give into false reasoning of religion sometimes (for comfort, etc), I will not succumb. The "mock trial" here is the judgement ever so present in the three major monotheisms.
"Since I don't have time nor mind
To figure out the nursery rhymes
That helped us out in making sense of our lives"
Meaning: I don't have time to figure out all of religious dogmas (not very clear on this one, tbh). Nursery rhymes == religion arose in the period of human infancy (and idea propagated by Christopher Hithchens, among others). Making sense of our lives == religion gives people hope and meaning in life (supposedly).
"The cruel, uneventful state
of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry every time one's wiped out"
Meaning: The songwriter seems to have just left his religion and is not both apathetic and fascinated by it. Wiped out == religion is losing dominance in our secular society.
"I'll try hard not to give in
Batten down to fare the wind
Rid my head of this pretense
Allow myself no mock defense
As I step into the night"
Meaning: Again, about death. You can figure this one out.
"Mercy's eyes are blue
And when she places them
In front of you
Nothing holds a
Roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel
There's no measuring of it as nothing else is love"
I'm not clear on this one. Suggestions?
I think the narrator is saying that after thousands of years of thinking and writing and searching, we as a people are still no closer to finding our purpose in life, be it through God ("the saints dub us divine") or through philosophy ("texts designed by intellects"). He is obviously conflicted about what to do, but rather than lie to himself, he chooses to believe in nothing ("step into the night") because he knows that to be the only real truth in life.
The second verse follows the same pattern, he is frustrated with our numerous attempts to make sense of everything and eventually he decides that the best option is to be totally apathetic and quit trying to figure out life. To me, the key point in this song is that the narrator wishes he could believe in something the way everyone else does, but he can't shake the feeling that life is utterly pointless so he just gives up on the entire concept.
So once again he says he won't lie to himself, he'll continue believing in nothing because in his heart, he knows it's true. He also knows that this philosophy will make life that much more difficult, but he's prepared for it ("Batten down to fare the wind").
Now the last verse could go two ways, in my opinion. The first is that "Mercy" is the freedom you feel when you accept that there's no real point in life. The second is that "Mercy" is the relief of love. Perhaps he's in love with a girl with blue eyes and the warmth she makes him feel helps him forget about all his doubts and confusion about life.
I personally think it's the second one. I think this song is saying that it's extremely hard to be a thinker in this world full of ambiguity, and when all of life seems pointless, at least there's love to help you survive.
I sometimes feel like this, but frankly I can't imagine being able to live with it in the long run. I'd rather keep trying to figure things out, however impossible that seemed. Beautiful song though.