This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
In the east the wind is blowing the boats across the sea
And their sails will fill the morning and their cries ring out to me
Oh, the more it changes, the more it stays the same
And the hand just re-arranges the players in the game
Oh, I had a dream
It seemed I stood alone
And the veil of all the years
Goes sinking from my eyes like a stone
A king shall fall and put to death by the English parliament shall be
Fire and plague to London come in the year of six and twenties three
An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy
His rule cost his empire dear, Napoleon his name shall be
From Castile does Franco come and the Government driven out shall be
An English king seeks divorce, and from his throne cast down is he
One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germanie
No law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
In the new lands of America three brothers now shall come to power
Two alone are born to rule but all must die before their hour
Two great men yet brothers not make the north united stand
Its power be seen to grow, and fear possess the eastern lands
Three leagues from the gates of Rome a Pope named Pol is doomed to die
A great wall that divides a city at this time is cast aside
These are the signs I bring to you
to show you when the time is nigh
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
And their sails will fill the morning and their cries ring out to me
Oh, the more it changes, the more it stays the same
And the hand just re-arranges the players in the game
Oh, I had a dream
It seemed I stood alone
And the veil of all the years
Goes sinking from my eyes like a stone
A king shall fall and put to death by the English parliament shall be
Fire and plague to London come in the year of six and twenties three
An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy
His rule cost his empire dear, Napoleon his name shall be
From Castile does Franco come and the Government driven out shall be
An English king seeks divorce, and from his throne cast down is he
One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germanie
No law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
In the new lands of America three brothers now shall come to power
Two alone are born to rule but all must die before their hour
Two great men yet brothers not make the north united stand
Its power be seen to grow, and fear possess the eastern lands
Three leagues from the gates of Rome a Pope named Pol is doomed to die
A great wall that divides a city at this time is cast aside
These are the signs I bring to you
to show you when the time is nigh
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
Man, man, your time is sand, your ways are leaves upon the sea
I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me
Lyrics submitted by webmasterdee
Nostradamus Lyrics as written by Alistair Ian Stewart
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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A great song. Amazing there are no interpretations. This song is pretty straightfoward and if any lines are confusing, there are many internet resources available that will probably clarify some of the more incomprehensible "prophecies" here.
Really the only thing worth saying about this song is that it is ironic that the song is so great when Nostradamus was a clown when it came to being a visionary and a prophet. Virtually no experts seem to be particularly impressed by Nostradamus' predictive abilities anymore.
Yeah, pretty straightforward, he's got the Great Fire of London in 1666, Napoleon (but in the song it's "Napoloron" but Nostradamus wrote "Pau, Nay, Loron"), the Spanish civil war and Francisco Franco, Hitler ("Hister" not bad), although the supposed reference to the Kennedys is a little weaker in the actual Michel de Nostredame version. I'm curious as to whether the English language "prophecies" in the song are purely the work of Al Stewart or if he got these words from some other source. The few I've found back to the original writings don't seem to look anything like what's in the song. Love the song though.
@orbitals <br /> He wrote in the liner notes of the album that it was based on a book about Nostradamus by Erika Cheetham.
The two great men are the World Trade Center towers. As "twin" phalluses, they could be seen as brothers, but are not (which is why the point was made). Their fate made the north united stand; its power be seen to grow; and fear possess the (middle) eastern lands.
I am not defending Nostradamus specifically; but I know from personal experience as a child that it is possible to perceive the future. The "two great men" reference could be gibberish, or a mis-translation of his writings - but the way Al Stewart wrote it, it makes for a very interesting coincidence.
It's just a shame that Nostradamus was incorrect about all three Kennedy brothers dying before their hour. Maybe in the stream of time he saw, Ted did not escape from the car in Chappaquiddick; but remained behind, like a gentleman, to help MJK. If only we could have lost Ted, but kept John & Bobby.
Two great men yet brothers not make the North United stand.
Grant and Lincoln, holding the North together, and keeping the United States whole?
Two great men yet brothers not make the North United stand.
Grant and Lincoln, holding the North together, and keeping the United States whole?
What a brilliant song, the mood it creates and the production. Al Stewart and this song sadly underrated as he doesn't do love songs.
This song is from the point of view of the French prophet Nostradamus. In 1555 he published a book of 943 quatrains that were said to predict the future. These prophecies came to him over the course of several fever dreams. Al Stewart adapted and reworded English translations of some of Nostradamus's quatrains to fit this song. Here are my interpretations of the prophecies he mentions:
"A king shall fall and put to death by the English parliament shall be"
"Fire and plague to London come in the year of six and twenties three"
"An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy His rule cost his empire dear, Napoloron his name shall be"
"From Castile does Franco come and the Government driven out shall be"
"An English king seeks divorce, and from his throne cast down is he"
"One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germanie No law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be"
"In the new lands of America three brothers now shall come to power Two alone are born to rule but all must die before their hour" -The Kennedy brothers: John, Robert and Joe. All died young. Joe died in WWII but John and Robert were assassinated in the 60s. Both were "born to rule" in that John was president when he was assassinated and Robert was a senator running for president when he was a assassinated.
The rest of the prophecies are future predictions as they hadn't yet come to pass when the song was originally released in 1973 so it's not as obvious why Al Stewart included them. But here are my thoughts:
"Two great men yet brothers not make the north united stand Its power be seen to grow, and fear possess the eastern lands" -This has been interpreted as the twin towers coming down and the subsequent wars in the middle East. But it could also be Trump and Putin's alliance against China. Who knows what was going through Al's head when he included this verse. It could be a reference to Lincoln and Grant during the Civil War as someone earlier mentioned, but I get the sense that the song was moving forward chronologically and Al intended on including prophecies that hadn't yet come to pass. The album is, after all, titled "Past, Present and Future".
"Three leagues from the gates of Rome a Pope named Pol is doomed to die A great wall that divides a city at this time is cast aside" -This is the eeriest prediction in the song as Pope John Paul had not yet become Pope in 1973 when this song was first published nor had the Berlin Wall come down. Al correctly assumed that the Berlin Wall would come down around the same time there was a Pope named Pol (Paul). John Paul II became Pope in 1979, but he didn't die until 2005 ... 15 years after The Berlin Wall came down. Not exactly "at this time, but still that's pretty close. I'd love to ask Al why he included this verse.
One correction: Nostradamus originally published 353 quatrains in 1555, But a book of an additional 942 quatrains was published posthumously after his death. It should be noted that Al used translations from Erica Cheetham's book "The Prophecies of Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" which was published in 1965 and he made further changes to them to fit the song. This is why I credit the predictions more to Al than to the 16th Century Prophet who was known for making his prophecies intentionally vague and later translations were often changed to better fit events that already happened.<br /> <br /> Also, I want to add that the first lyric:<br /> "In the east the wind is blowing the boats across the sea<br /> And their sails will fill the morning and their cries ring out to me"<br /> For a long time I wasn't sure if this was prophecy, or it simply described the Age of Exploration that was taking place during Nostradamus's lifetime. The wind coming from the East and blowing Columbus's boats across the Atlantic Ocean had already happened in 1492 when Nostradamus was writing his quatrains. But the age of exploration and colonization of new lands was still going on well into the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s and 1800s.<br /> "And their cries ring out to me" could describe consequence of this colonization and empire building ie The wars, genocides and deaths from disease of the native population.
@drakus1173 I think you are forgetting a pope. What I noticed about the lyrics was the words " doomed to die". Everyone dies but then there was the pope John Paul 1. He was pope for only a few weeks in 1979 and then died suddenly. That is very unusual and could be interpreted as doomed to die. The berlin wall fell 10 years later. Pretty good prediction I think.