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Hot breath
rought skin,
warm laughs and smiling,
the lovliest words
whispered and meant
you like all these things.
But, though you like all these things
you love a stone.
You love a stone,
because it's smooth and it's cold.
And you'd love most
to be told
that it's all your own.
You love white veins,
you love hard grey,
the heaviest weight,
the clumsiest shape,
the earthiest smell,
the hollowest tone
you love a stone.
And I'm found too fast,
called too fond of flames,
and then I'm phoning my friends,
and then I'm shouldering the blame,
while you're picking pebbles
out of the drain,
miles ago.
You're out singing songs,
and I'm down shouting names
at the flickerless screen,
going fucking insane.
Am I losing my cool,
overstating my case?
Well, baby what can I say?
You know I never claimed
that I was a stone.
And you love a stone.
You love white veins,
you love hard grey,
the heaviest weight,
the clumsiest shape,
the earthiest smell,
the hollowest tone
you love a stone.
You love a stone,
because it's dark and it's old,
and if it could start
being alive
you'd stop living alone.
And I think I believe that,
if stones could dream,
they'd dream of being laid
side-by-side,
piece-by-piece,
and turned into a castle
for some towering queen
they're unable to know.
And when that queen's daughter
came of age,
I think she'd be lovely
and stubborn and brave,
and suitors would journey
from kingdoms away
just to make themselves known.
And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought
fresh brouquets every day
when she turned him away
to remember some knave
who once gave
just one rose, one day, years ago.
rought skin,
warm laughs and smiling,
the lovliest words
whispered and meant
you like all these things.
But, though you like all these things
you love a stone.
You love a stone,
because it's smooth and it's cold.
And you'd love most
to be told
that it's all your own.
You love white veins,
you love hard grey,
the heaviest weight,
the clumsiest shape,
the earthiest smell,
the hollowest tone
you love a stone.
And I'm found too fast,
called too fond of flames,
and then I'm phoning my friends,
and then I'm shouldering the blame,
while you're picking pebbles
out of the drain,
miles ago.
You're out singing songs,
and I'm down shouting names
at the flickerless screen,
going fucking insane.
Am I losing my cool,
overstating my case?
Well, baby what can I say?
You know I never claimed
that I was a stone.
And you love a stone.
You love white veins,
you love hard grey,
the heaviest weight,
the clumsiest shape,
the earthiest smell,
the hollowest tone
you love a stone.
You love a stone,
because it's dark and it's old,
and if it could start
being alive
you'd stop living alone.
And I think I believe that,
if stones could dream,
they'd dream of being laid
side-by-side,
piece-by-piece,
and turned into a castle
for some towering queen
they're unable to know.
And when that queen's daughter
came of age,
I think she'd be lovely
and stubborn and brave,
and suitors would journey
from kingdoms away
just to make themselves known.
And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought
fresh brouquets every day
when she turned him away
to remember some knave
who once gave
just one rose, one day, years ago.
Lyrics submitted by PuNkJaSo
Track duration: 05:23
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I'd go a bit further and maybe suggest the character actually is with the woman in question; but that his attempts to keep the relationship/marriage together is being harmed by her devotion to a previous, now dead lover, and the song is a bitter lament on that.
But that's just me...
tippita touched on an odd year ago), and that as such, the song is probably a smaller portion of a greater meaning, a single dimension of a fully formed figure.
People tend to have a desire to dissect every line to interpret its meaning with respect to the whole of the song. The problem with this is that invariably, you wind up with some loose ends that can't be tied in with the interpretation. The white veins, the earthy smell, the hollow tone; in my view, these are simply references to the metaphor of the stone as a whole. They very well may have secondary meaning behind them, but they're meant to concrete the central nature of the stone in the song. Therefor, I do not desire to take each and every line and make it my own. Rather, I will present my argument with the backing that the song provides. You can decide if it makes sense to you or not.
For the short time that I've studied this album, from a purely literal stance, it is an album centering around the choices we make, the righting of past wrongs, and the consequences thereof. I believe that the album changes perspectives radically from song to song, verse to verse, progressing the story at some points while delving further into the psyche of the 'black sheep boy' at others. This song appears to be of the latter variety, describing the black sheep boy's love of a girl who, to him, rejects his romantic intentions.
In 'Black' we see into the past of the girl he loves, who was apparently raped, or possibly simply wronged somehow. The black sheep boy wants her to take revenge on the boy, even fancying taking that revenge himself.
But I digress, I'm not reviewing 'Black'. Just providing some quick backing to my argument.
The black sheep boy mourns his unrequited love, for the girl of his fancy loves a stone. While many have argued that this stone is another man, I believe it is a much deeper metaphor. Given the girl's past from 'Black', it seems unlikely that she would love another. Let's dissect this piece by piece so there isn't any confusion. Well, as little confusion as possible, anyways.
These first few lines show us the girl's state of mind, at least from the black sheep boy's perspective.
He earnestly believes that she longs for the passionate love that he could give her (the first stanza). But she 'likes' them, and loves a stone. What is a stone? It's smooth and cold. I believe that the stone can mean any number of things, though for the purposes of this interpretation, I'll wager that it means loneliness. I know, I know, it sounds insane. The girl has been hurt very deeply, and as any person would, she has turned inward rather than face those demons and move on. So says our narrator, she has grown attached to her feelings of alienation. Yes, it's cold. It hurts. But it's reliable. It's always there. And there's no risk of it betraying her.
The singer then goes on to describe the rather extreme way that he's dealing with what he interprets as a hopeless love. Others around him know that he's upset ('I'm found to fast') and that he's prone to, shall we say, explosive, violent outbursts ('Called too fond of flames'). He's collapsing emotionally, taking the blame for her current state. Meanwhile, much to his dismay, she's continuing to take a strange, surreal comfort from her isolation 'miles ago'. Since he is human, and therefor by definition unreliable, he cannot be a stone, nor claim to be.
The bit about 'And if it could start being alive, you'd stop living alone', it's simply a reference to that loneliness that the girl has come to rely on. If somehow that feeling could live, she would never be alone again, for it would be with her always, just as it is now.
Kings and queens are referenced a few times in this album. This song ends with a touching metaphor of stones that can dream. Again, the black sheep boy believes that the girl is taking comfort in loneliness, having felt it for so long. It is a dark, cold, unchanging stone. He then personifies her loneliness in his own mind, which then twists the metaphors into something entirely different. Stones that build themselves 'into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know'. The girl is possibly the queen here. Well, some of you may wonder, then who is the princess, the daughter of the queen? It seems to me that the daughter could very well be the girl's love, which the black sheep boy so desires. Her adoration, which any young man would desire, so says the black sheep boy.
The song ends with a seemingly hopeful overtone, which doesn't quite fit the morbid depression that underlies the entire song. The knave who gave just one rose one day could very well be the stone again, that loneliness that comforts her so. Though the black sheep boy gives her all of his love, fresh bouquets of it, she ultimately turns him away. Yes, her grief does not give her the love that the black sheep boy could, it still gave her just one rose. One tiny bit of comfort that she wants to keep close to her, to avoid being hurt again.
I apologize for the frazzled nature of this interpretation. It is my first one, and was done extremely late at night, at a time in which I am incredibly sleep depraved. However, just as a suggestion, try to view this song as I did, from the perspective of the black sheep boy, who we know to be quite mentally unstable. Anything that he says could be interpreted multiple ways, and his thoughts collide frequently into themselves, taking unexpected turns (as they do at the very end of the song). This is a man who has no hope for the girl he loves, and is desperately seeking some meaning behind her rejection of him, even as he is destroyed by his own interpretation.