Lyrics for Duk Koo Kim as interpreted by Orangsoda2

Duk Koo Kim Lyrics
looking out on my roof last night
woken up from a dream
i saw a typhoon coming in close
bringing the clouds down to the sea
making the world look gray and alone
taking all light from my view
keeping everyone in
and keeping me here with you

around you now, i can't sleep no more baby
around you still, don't want to leave yet

woken up from a dream last night
somewhere lost in war
i couldn't feel my feet or hands
i didn't feel right anymore
i knew there I'd die alone
with no one to reach to
but an angel came down
and brought me back to you

i'd rather leave this world forever baby
than let life go the way it's going

watching an old fight film last night
Ray Mancini vs. Duk Koo Kim
the boy from Seoul was hanging in good
but the pounding took to him
and there in the square he lay alone
without face without crown
and the angel who looked upon
never came down

you never know what day could pick you baby
out of the air, out of nowhere

come to me once more my love
show me love I've never known
sing to me once more my love
words from your younger years
sing to me once more my love
songs that i love to hear

birds gather 'round my window
fly with everything i love about the day
flowers, blue and gold and orange
rise with everything i love about the day

walk with me down these strange streets
how have we come to be here
so kind are all these people
how have we come to know them


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hodja
10-18-2004

Rated 0 
a friend of mine just turned me on to this album...and i can't stop listening to it!..it's warm and soothing , pensive and moody like good autumn music should be...this is great dreary rainy day music and i love it...thank you mark k. for wonderful escape-ism music....this song especially helps me to drone out the day and romanticize my pain...there is a group from glascow,scottland by the name of "the blue nile"...if you love sun kil moon's moody tone of dreary rainy days...check out the blue nile's album titled "hats"...

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tragicrock
01-29-2005

Rated 0 
well said matie. I bought this album when it came out in Sept. 2003. I listened to back to back 3 times...with headphones on. I have never done that in my life. I believe that album -"Ghosts of the Great Highway"- takes you somewhere you have never been...between the past and present...between warmly smile with friends and crying all alone. Never has an albums made me feel as such. Kudos to the whole band...and what a great production. I recommend the headphones!

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re/ol/er
03-03-2006

Rated 0 
shortest 14.5 minute song ever. beautiful guitarring beautiful singing. cant wait to check out some blue nile

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cmack482
04-19-2006

Rated 0 
This song is a tribute to the South Korean boxer named Duk Koo Kim. In 1982 he fought Ray Mancini, who at the time was the world lightweight champion. In the fourteenth round of the fight (this song is fourteen minutes long) Duk Koo Kim was knocked down and the fight was stopped. Within minutes he fell into a coma, and within the week he died. Within roughly a year's time both the referee of the match and Kim's mother commited suicide. The fight had been on national television and led to many changes in the sport.

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PhiloMath
08-14-2006

Rated 0 
This is, for me, the greatest rock song ever written.

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PhiloMath
08-14-2006

Rated 0 
Ben Hecht said of Cole Porter's songs, "They are more than tunes. They are little houses in which our hearts once lived. When we hear them we go visiting."

I say this about Mark Kozelek, and about 'Duk Koo Kim'.

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floydian18
08-15-2006

Rated 0 
ummm this is great song but the best rock song Ithink your jumping the gun a little by saying that buddy. Theres a lot of rock songs out there which you might've not heard yet? BTw im not down grading this song because I think it's a beautiful tribute to that sad turn of events in '81 or w/e it was.

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PhiloMath
08-18-2006

Rated 0 
No shit, which is why I mentioned 'for me', implying that my comment is based on what I've heard. Besides, you boiled it down to the specific events of the Mancini - Duk Koo Kim fight, which leads me to believe you've got a very limited understanding as to what the song's more than probably trying to achieve.

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fourameuphoria
01-15-2007

Rated 0 
This song is up there with "shine on you crazy diamond" and "comfortably numb" in my opinion. it's a beautiful fusion of some of floyd's most hallucinatory work, and drake's darkest material. i think one can best understand this song just by the imagery of the lyrics. i don't know exactly what it's about, but there's themes of unrequited love, death, apocalyptic images, fever-induced nightmares and hallucinations in the middle of the night. personally, from about the 8 minute mark and on, probably some of the most tragic, beautiful music i've ever heard.

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mohinder
04-29-2007

Rated 0 
haha i agree with the shortest 14.5 minute song ever comment :)
this is beautifully composed lyrically and musically. I find myself spending hours putting it on repeat. After all it just takes two plays to take up a half an hour, jeez. love the lyrics of the first verse, but i find myself most taken with the second half of the song. amazing music.

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soundless_space
09-05-2007

Rated 0 
This is my favourite Sun Kil Moon song.

I have no idea what it means because this is the first time I've known what the hell he was saying. From glancing at these lyrics, I'd say it's about a past love.

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wooki
11-03-2007

Rated 0 
Check out Mark Kozelek's acoustic version on the Little Drummer Boy 2CD.... pretty different from this version, but absolutely mind-blowing! I love it.

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giil
06-23-2008

Rated 0 
I recently saw Mark play in Boston and he ended the show with this song. I can't remember if it was immediately preceding this song or earlier in the show, but he commented that he lives a "strange" life, always on the road, traveling in the car with Phil all day, not talking to each other, only to arrive in a new city, new venue, and get up and perform in front of 500 strangers. You got the sense, as I always have, that he sees himself as a Duk Koo Kim-like figure, taking blow after blow in those last few rounds but refusing to go down. Anyway, his anecdote about driving made the meaning of the song all the more clear to me, and I thought it was beautifully performed.

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toppsseller
06-27-2008

Rated 0 
I saw Mark in Boston as well and the what Giil said about Mark seemed very true. He also mentioned that after all is said and done he goes back to his hotel room and is lonely again. What a great show!

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SeanR
10-02-2008

Rated 0 
this is what this song means to me (incredibly simplified...I am no Mark Kozalek hehe):

you never know when your time is up. an angel can come down to save you...or she may not, as in duk koo kim's case. and knowing that life can be so fleeting makes you want to be with the one you love.

this song is so beautiful.

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mizzbijou
01-16-2009

Rated 0 
I picked up Ghosts of the Great Highway because I am a loooooong-time Red House Painters fan (I had the pleasure to see them live years ago, bless Mark K because he was horribly ill yet gave 100%, and graciously took audience requests). I was beyond thrilled to discover that his solo stuff is just as gorgeous. The subtlety of the plaintive chord progressions, the layers - as someone here said, it's perfect autumn/rainy-day music. For me it's more like stark, wintry music - I will always associate it with autumns and winters driving through the countryside of Northern VA (even tho Mark/Red House Painters hail from California, heh).

Duk Koo Kim is a song I like to lose myself to through headphones when I need to let go of daily tensions and and sail away. I came here to find some understanding of the lyrics, and am so happy to read how much other people like it too. Ahhhhhhh, awesome. :)

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Rickvee
04-14-2009

Rated 0 
I've read that Koz like to write songs while sitting in his San Francisco apartment looking out upon the Pacific ocean as storms approach. As one listens to this beautiful song that songwriting method is easy to imagine.

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Ducks
08-18-2009

Rated 0 
such a wonderful tribute to duk koo kim. live or die

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