Mark Lanegan – When Your Number Isn't Up

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Send "When Your Number Isn't Up" Ringtone to Cell

Did you call for the night porter?
You smell the blood running warm
I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone
Now something crawls right up my spine
That I always got to follow
Turn out the lights
Don't see me drawn and hollow
Just blood running warm
No one needs to tell you that
There's no use for ya here anymore
And where are your friends?
They've gone away
It's a different world, they left you to this
To janitor
The emptiness
So let's get it on
When the sun is finally going down, and you're overdue to follow
But you're still above the ground
What ya got comin' is hard to swallow
Like blood running warm
Did they call for the night porter
And smell the blood, blood running warm
Well I've been waitin at this frozen border, so close you could hit it with a stone

Send "When Your Number Isn't Up" Ringtone to Cell


Lyrics submitted by richd-3

Track duration: 03:01

"When Your Number Isn't Up" as written by Mark Lanegan

Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

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When Your Number Isn't Up song meanings
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7 Comments

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  • 0
    General Comment:Lord Pembroke has it pretty much right. It's about someone who is waiting to die, they feel like their life is about over. They feel lonely and just want it to be over as their freinds have all gone leaving them nobody to lean on;

    And where are your friends?
    They've gone away
    It's a different world, they left you to this
    To janitor
    The emptiness
    So let's get it on

    The frozen border to me at least is clearly 'passing on'. The sun is finally going down is metaphor picturing your life as a single day and the sun is setting on it so it's time to go to sleep and end it. That's how they feel, but they're 'still above the ground' and their number isn't yet up but it's what they long for. Awesome song.

    Flag LeylandLaticon April 18, 2010   Link
    • 1 Reply
  • 0
    General Comment:Reminds me of Tom Waits's "The Ocean Doesn't Want Me" from Bone Machine. There seem to be thoughts of suicide.

    I also agree with nobody_'s interpretation.
    Flag azkmon September 17, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Even though my life has had a very different trajectory than Lanegan's, I believe I've been in the place he sings about in this song--that desolate sort of place where you're "in between the worlds," not dead but yet strangely aloof and detached from the world of the living. The narrator of this song is surprised that he's still alive, and still feels close to death--that "frozen border"--but knows that his "number isn't up," that it isn't his time to die. What's left is to "janitor the emptiness"--which is all any of us ever really do, it's just that the narrator of this song has the haunting knowledge of it.
    Flag nobody_on February 26, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:the title is a reference to a car accident he was in
    Flag ZoloftSmoothieon August 26, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I'd assume its about a guy close to overdose on some narcotics.
    Why? - "I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone" - This frozen border suggests that it might be death itself.

    So there he sits; abandoned, left alone to janitor the emptiness. Overdue to follow the setting sun - but he doesn't. At least not yet...
    Flag fransjosefon March 24, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:ah wait, i think i got an idea.
    I think its about a guy who has lived his live and wants to die. But "his number isn't up"

    Well, i think its about this :s
    Flag Lord Pembrokeon April 28, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:anyon egot any idea? im trying to figure this one out but he gets me lost on this one
    Flag Lord Pembrokeon April 28, 2005   Link

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