Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
The ghost of your smile is always looking for new
Bodies to haunt
And its been here
And disappeared
Its hanging around aloofly for awhile
Gradually gone
Its pleasing
And freezing
Well I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
You looked all over town
Got turned around
To walk back through the mud
The kind you had left behind you
Everybody is the same in this long no-win game
Where every new blood gets time to
Become resigned
Now I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
Why you never tried to tame your master
You just blow through the coals
Blow through the coals
Blow through the coals
Till everyone knows
That your smile is just a ghost
The ghost of your smile was seen on a body in the park
Its old news
You see that its no use
Waiting to start
Waiting to light
Waiting till dark
I told you man
I told you
Well I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
Why you never tried to tame your master
Bodies to haunt
And its been here
And disappeared
Its hanging around aloofly for awhile
Gradually gone
Its pleasing
And freezing
Well I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
You looked all over town
Got turned around
To walk back through the mud
The kind you had left behind you
Everybody is the same in this long no-win game
Where every new blood gets time to
Become resigned
Now I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
Why you never tried to tame your master
You just blow through the coals
Blow through the coals
Blow through the coals
Till everyone knows
That your smile is just a ghost
The ghost of your smile was seen on a body in the park
Its old news
You see that its no use
Waiting to start
Waiting to light
Waiting till dark
I told you man
I told you
Well I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
Why you never tried to tame your master
Lyrics submitted by RomanCandle
Track duration: 04:10
"New Disaster" as written by Steven P. Smith
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
The majority of his songs are ambiguous. They share meaning between "lost faded love", the escalation of drug use over time, and likely, the correlation between the two. He often romanticizes drugs in many songs, for instance, in "True Love" he narrates how he saw heroin as his "wife", and speaks of the honeymoon phase that heroin has on its new users.
New Disaster is a lot like "Angel in the Snow" because it can be interpreted in the same two ways. The "New Disaster" is the drugs themselves. They "gradually" take a grip over you until you're an addict. Elliott didn't want to become one, but things like love let him down, causing him to rely on the only things that had treated him well in the past. Therefore, he continues to "blow through the coals" every time he uses. He slowly reignites his addiction until it blows up in his face. He is left with a different kind of lifestyle that consists of "waiting to light, waiting til dark". It becomes all he cares about, and that's why his "smile is just a ghost".
Drugs are "pleasing and freezing" because they obviously please, but most people overlook the fact that you're eventually left with dependency, boredom, and a negative, cold change in character. Especially from Opiates. "I told you, man, I told you" is a haunting line that likely refers to a warning from one of his junkie friends, telling him to be careful.
Had Elliott "tamed his master" in the first place, solving introspective problems (easier said than done) rather than abusing the temporary escape that brain-slowing drugs provide, he wouldn't be in this disaster. Although, some things, like love, are painful and don't have an easy solution. This is the reason why the two tender subjects of love and drugs form a "long, no-win game".
Fucking beautiful, heart wrenching song that I wish I didn't have the capability of interpreting from personal experience. RIP Elliott.
the song expresses the idea of love as a no-win game, where everyone is pitifully searching for a perfect someone that can never be found.
First of all, the drums were not "added" later. The leaked versions that don't feature drums (or organ, but no one seems to have a problem with that being on the "New Moon" version) were shabby mixes thrown onto the internet just to get the songs out there. Go read about the production on "New Moon". They didn't add anything, they only removed tape hiss and smoothed things over. Some purist might say that's too much, but at least they didn't add anything. Please don't make things up based on assumptions.
Second, I too thought this was either about a lover or about himself. However, today I was listening to the song for the first time in years and it occurred to me that it's probably about his mother. She had remarried an abusive man named "Charlie" who pops up in Elliott's stuff occasionally. I think "you" is to his mother, and the "New Disaster" is Charlie. I think the image of a "ghost of your smile" is that his mother isn't happy with her life with Charlie, but won't admit it, so her smile is dead but makes phantom appearances on a rare occasion.
Anyway, that's my hypothesis. Give 'er a think-over and draw your own conclusions.
"Well, I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
You looked all over town
Got turned around
To walk back through the mud
The kind you had left behind you"
If he is talking to himself the looking all over town could be him doing errands for this person that he wishes to be with or he could be searching for her and not finding what he wants.
"Well, I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
You looked all over town
Got turned around
To walk back through the mud
The kind you had left behind you"
He could be talking to the girl in this one. He's wondering where she is and how she looked all over town to find someone but in the end she comes back to the mud she left. The mud is beautiful because he is the mud to her. Mud is sticky and not somewhere you want to be. Its a shitty ugly place. So Elliott is the mud to her and he knows she is stuck with him when she fails to find someone else. However those lines could be him talking to himself as well. Like asking himself what is he doing with her if she is going all over town looking for other people and she could be the mud to him. She could be the mud because he is stuck with her too and he has the worse off end of being stuck with her. Which is why this chorus is really amazing because it goes with the general idea that i said before about how everyone is looking for someone but rarely finds it. Its doubting love.
"Everybody is the same in this long no-win game
Where every new blood
Gets time to become resigned"
Meaning everyone learns that love is one of those things that can't be achieved by everyone and so you resign your efforts, hopes, dreams, trials for it.
Whats beautiful about this song is that he goes into an example of his own life. So its also about his connection to someone that he wishes to be with. But that person who has a smile is searching for someone for herself and wonders who she going after now.
"The ghost of your smile is always looking
For new bodies to haunt
And its been here and disappeared
It's hanging around aloofly for a while
Gradually gone
It's pleasing and freezing"
Meaning that the person has left him looking for other people to leave. Its pleasing to have someone like you but then its freezing and not warm anymore when that person is gone. Which is why i like the metaphor of the ghost of her smile because ghosts are cold, not real, and ghosts can also be someone you want to be back and want to be real.
"Well, I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
You looked all over town
Got turned around
To walk back through the mud
The kind you had left behind you"
However those lines could be talking about himself as well. Like asking himself what is he doing with her if she is going all over town looking for other people. Which is why this chorus is really amazing because it goes with the general idea that i said before about how everyone is looking for someone but rarely finds it. Its doubting love. Then the next lines about the mud are beautiful because if the chorus is about her then that means he is the mud. Mud is sticky and not somewhere you want to be. Its a shitty ugly place. So Elliott is the mud to her.
"Now I wonder what it is you're after
Keeping company with this disaster
Why you never tried to tame your master"
This is really nice because this stanza has dual meanings to me. He could be saying this to the girl about how he wonders where she is and how she could be doing this to people etc. and why she never tries to tame her master. Now master is the key word because master to her means her longing for someone and master for him means his longing for someone/her. So this is an example of his long-no win game because he can't have her.
:)
He really leaves it pretty open to interpretation, like most of his songs.
He really leaves it pretty open to interpretation, like most of his songs.