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Took the fireworks and the vanity
The circuit board and the city streets
Shooting star, swaying palm tree
Laid it at the arbiter's feet
If I could change my mind, change the paradigm
Prepare myself for another life
Forgive myself for the many times
I was cruel to something helpless and weak
But hear it come, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Tag it on a tenement wall
Hear it come, that heavy love
Someone's got to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
I was dressed in white, touched by something pure
Death obsessed like a teenager
Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar
I'm still angry with no reason to be
At the architect who imagined this
For the everyman, blessed Sisyphus
Slipping steadily into madness
Now that's the only place to be free
But hear it come, that heavy love
You're never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Tattooed on a criminal's arm
Hear it come, that heavy love
Someone got to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love
You're never going to move it alone
No, I don't want to play
It's a shell game, it's a shell game
Distorted sounds on oscilloscopes
Distorted facts, I could never cope
My private life is an inside joke
No one will explain it to me
We'll be everything that we ever needed
Everyone, on the count of three!
Everyone, on the count of three!
All together now!
Hear it come, that heavy love
We're never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Playing as the cylinder rolls
Hear it come, that heavy love
I only want to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
The circuit board and the city streets
Shooting star, swaying palm tree
Laid it at the arbiter's feet
If I could change my mind, change the paradigm
Prepare myself for another life
Forgive myself for the many times
I was cruel to something helpless and weak
But hear it come, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Tag it on a tenement wall
Hear it come, that heavy love
Someone's got to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
I was dressed in white, touched by something pure
Death obsessed like a teenager
Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar
I'm still angry with no reason to be
At the architect who imagined this
For the everyman, blessed Sisyphus
Slipping steadily into madness
Now that's the only place to be free
But hear it come, that heavy love
You're never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Tattooed on a criminal's arm
Hear it come, that heavy love
Someone got to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love
You're never going to move it alone
No, I don't want to play
It's a shell game, it's a shell game
Distorted sounds on oscilloscopes
Distorted facts, I could never cope
My private life is an inside joke
No one will explain it to me
We'll be everything that we ever needed
Everyone, on the count of three!
Everyone, on the count of three!
All together now!
Hear it come, that heavy love
We're never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Playing as the cylinder rolls
Hear it come, that heavy love
I only want to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
Lyrics submitted by thecomaboy
Track duration: 03:56
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The sunken board and the city streets
Shooting star, swaying palm tree
Laid it at all at his feet
This sounds like a bitter sweet reflection of the main character. he has reached where he was going, he has fame (fireworks) and vanity. he has the shames (the sunken board) and he takes to the city streets. its night time under shooting stars on a beach, and he lays all hes done at the feet of another character. possibly the mentor.
If I could change my mind, change the paradigm
Prepare myself for another life
Forgive myself for the many times
I was cruel to something helpless and weak
This verse sounds like the hero is now addressing the mentor character. he says he wishes it hadn't ended like this, he wishes he was some one different. he realizes this is impossible, but hopes in another life it will turn out differently. its a slightly ironic comment made in jest. he then adds sobering, that he wishes also that he could just forgive himself, for all the times he acted less then heroically.
But here it comes, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
Here it comes, that heavy love
Tag it on a tenement wall
Here it comes, that heavy love
Someone's got to share in the load
Here it comes, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
Now the mentor replies to him, with what he sees to be the answer to all of lives questions. the heavy love, not a romantic love or comradely love, but a deep acceptance of every one and everything in the world.
I was dressed in white, touched by something pure
Death obsessed like a teenager
Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar
I'm still angry with no reason to be
The hero waves him aside, and returns to his thoughts. he remembers back when it began, when he was still pure and untainted. he thought about death constantly, confused by teachings of evil and good. he gave up his entire youth, blood spit and fire trying to figure it out, but never did. even now, it makes him angry, despite it being his own decision.
At the architect who imagined this
For the everyman, blessed Sisyphus
Slipping steadily into madness
Now that's the only place to be free
He blames the architect, possibly god or the government, or even the villain of the story for his mess, and states that every man blesses Sisyphus. he says that like Sisyphus, endless and meaningless tasks are a blessing, just like the madness they eventually bring. madness, the only place a man can be free from strife and worry.
But here it comes, that heavy love
You're never going to move it alone
Here it comes, that heavy love
Tattooed on a criminal's arm
Here it comes, that heavy love
Someone got to share in the load
Here it comes, that heavy love
You're never going to move it alone
The mentor speaks again of love, and how it can forgive and change even criminals, releasing them from their sins. if it can do that for some one like that, how much more can it do for you?
No, I don't want to play
It's a shell game, it's a shell game
the hero angry now, shakes his head and cuts the mentor off. love is a rigged game he says, and im not going to play if im doomed to lose. better to never love at all then love and be betrayed.
Distorted sounds on oscilloscopes
Distorted facts, I could never cope
My private life is an inside joke
No one will explain it to me
the hero speaks bitterly of how his life has fallen apart, nothing makes sense, nothing feels just. and yet he smiles on, goign through life like a meteor, just to spite it. he is a rock.
We'll be everything that we ever needed
Everyone, on the count of three!
Everyone, on the count of three!
All together now!
every man is an island! he cried, leaping to his feet and smiling in a unhinged manner. im all that i need! i dont need anyone! everyone, anyone, we all need no one!
Here it comes, that heavy love
We're never going to move it alone
Here it comes, that heavy love
Playing as the cylinder rolls
Here it comes, that heavy love
I only want to share in the load
Here it comes, that heavy love
I'm never going to move it alone
and the mentor responds one last time, wearily for being denied so many times, but still championing love. he only wants to help the hero over his depression, but will he ever listen?
Took everything that is my life, that is beautiful & every mistake that I ever made & gave it to something like god.
If I could pretend to believe in this paradigm, I could forgive myself for my most cruel mistakes just because this or that religion says it's OK.
But... here it comes - the heavy love for all of the world, all around, all of humanity, the good, the beautiful, the bad, the sad, the poor, the weak, the believers, the non-believers - I can't just stick to this one religion & leave out everyone else - I've got to share in the load - we all do.
Dressed in white, touched by something pure - religion? science? atheism? all (and more) trying to find the definitive answers to things like death - wanting black & white answers
Sold my tortured youth - piss & vinegar --- that's when you're just spitting out anger all the time
Still angry (with no reason to be) at god, if he is the one who imagined all of this, if he (or any imaginer/creator) exists. Angry about the life of the common man (or king) who is caught in the daily/lifelong cycle rolling of a stone up a hill, to please god or just because that's what he thinks he's supposed to do.
And, the best thing to do, when stuck in a sisyphus life, is to sink into madness, perhaps the madness of belief in a religion. It'd be easy to free your mind that way
But here comes the love of all the world, again - you can't just be free, you can't just sink into madness - we all need each other, no matter what we believe.
And belief - it's all just a shell game. Pick one, it might be the winner!
Science can explain it all! But, I don't really get it sometimes. And, it doesn't explain what's going on in my head, at least, not yet anyway.
And, then, here it comes - that heavy love - all of us together - we can do this
Conor said that the song was about being a fraud.
Take that how you will.
The first verse of the song says, “Took the fireworks and the vanity/The circuit board and the city streets/Shooting stars, swaying palm trees/Laid it at the arbiter’s feet”. These images are all symbolic of earlier album covers by the band. The cover of 1998’s Letting Off the Happiness featured a full page of firework designs. A mirror on a wall of intricate wallpaper was the focus of 2000’s Fevers & Mirrors, and “the vanity”, another word for mirror, is representative of that. The “circuit board” is from the cover of 2005’s Digital Ash in a Digital Urn which features a design made up of binary code. The cover of I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, also released in 2005, is a patchwork design of townhouses in New York City which is what “the city streets” refers to. Lastly, “Shooting stars, swaying palm trees” is a reference to the image of pyramids, surrounded by palm trees, underneath a shooting star from the cover of Cassadaga, released in 2007 (ConorOberst.com). The last line mentions an “arbiter.” An arbiter is defined as “a person who has judgment and is considered authoritative” (Mirriam Webster). In Psalm 62:11, God is called “the Impartial Arbiter of Destiny (McFayden).” Oberst took all his albums, which amount to his life’s work, and presented them to God for judgment.
The second verse begins with the lyrics, “If I could change my mind, change the paradigm.” A paradigm is a standard or an ideal (Mirriam Webster) and is used in this context to describe the ideals and set forms of religious traditions and beliefs. Oberst is saying that if he could change these set models of religious tradition that never seem right to him, or perhaps even change himself and the way he regards them, then he could finally comes to terms with his faith and be part of a religious community. The lyrics continue, “Prepare myself for another life/Forgive myself for the many times/I was cruel to something helpless and weak.” The other life that Oberst is preparing himself for is the afterlife. In the Catholic religion the way to prepare yourself for the afterlife, is to confess your sins, preform penance, and be forgiven. In fact, Last Rites, one of the seven sacraments, are given to dying people to let them have confession and be forgiven one last time (Wise Geek). Oberst is sayings he would try to be a good Catholic and try to get into heaven if he thought the process to do so that the Catholics preach is true, or if he even thought it was worth it. During an interview with the Montreal Mirror in 2005, Oberst said, “These ideas of God and afterlife and sin seem very abstract, but they're part of how I grew up, so inevitably they affect the way I think.” This quote shows how unsure he is about religion, and how he as changed religions many times and still doesn’t know exactly what he believes. The entire verse is contemplative. Oberst is trying to figure out if his lack of faith is due to some fault of his own.
The chorus repeats three times over the course of the song, each time with a slight variation that mirrors the singer’s growth. The first chorus goes, “But here it come, that heavy love/I’m never gonna move it alone/Here it come, that heavy love/Tag it on a tenement wall/Here it come that heavy love, someone gotta share in the load/Oh here it come, that heavy love/I’m never gonna move it alone.” The “heavy love” being referred to is the overwhelming need Oberst has to find meaning in life and find love and forgiveness. The love is heavy because it is a burden and consumes a person. Earlier in his life, he only attributed these things with religion and the salvation that it grants. He sings, “Someone’s gotta share in the load,” and he believes that God is the only person this could possibly be. It is not until later in life, and later in the song, that he realizes he can move, or remove, this heavy love from his back, in other ways. The line “Tag it on a tenement wall” is about how religious symbols like crosses or Bible passages are not just found in beautiful or highclass places; they can be found as graffiti on the walls of the slums. Everywhere he turns, he is surrounded by people inspired by religion. This entire chorus is in first person and is symbolic of Oberst blaming himself, and his sins, for being the reason why he could not ever fit in with a religious community. He felt alone and therefore was searching for someone to help him, because he is “never gonna move it alone.” When he says this during the first chorus it sounds hopeless and weak, as if he has already given up.
The third verse begins by describing Oberst’s Catholic upbringing. “I was dressed in white, touched by something pure/Death obsessed like a teenager/Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar.” In Catholicism, the color white represents purity. When receiving the seven sacraments, such as Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, and even Holy Orders, participants usually wear white gowns (Bible Tools). When he says he was touched by something pure, he is referring to Chrism, the pure oil used to anoint people receiving many of the seven sacraments (Morrisroe). Oberst then says he was “death obsessed like a teenager.” In an interview with The Huffington Post in 2011 Oberst said, “I’ve always been slightly preoccupied with death or those silly big questions people will tell you to not spend your time worrying about. I guess it’s more trying to kind of enlighten myself as much as I can and know, all these perspectives that are out there or these possible meanings of things, that has always been a fascination of mine.'” All these big steps of his induction into the religious community were taking place while he was a teenager, a time when he began to be preoccupied with ideas of death and mortality. The next line mentions “piss and vinegar” which is meant to symbolize bitterness and when Oberst says he sold his “tortured youth”, and he means he wasted his early life being bitter towards most people around him and angry at God for not giving him straight answers. His anger towards God becomes even more evident in the next few lines of the song. “I’m still angry with no reason to be/At the architect who imagines/For the everyman, blessed Sisyphus.” The architect he is talking about is God. In Institutes of the Christian Religion, written in 1536, by John Calvin, a famous protestant reformer, he calls God “The Divine Architect” and refers to God’s work as “Architecture of the Universe.” This is because God is thought to have designed and created the entire universe. Oberst is angry with God for imagining and then making a world where everyone is forced to live like Sisyphus, a character from Greek mythology. Sisyphus was tortured by having to roll a giant boulder up a mountain, only to have to start over again because it rolls back down for all of eternity (Camus). Oberst equates Sisyphus’ frustration to the frustration he feels in trying to find a religion he truly believes in. Every time he discovers one, he finds something that feels fake or unholy to him. In an interview with the Paste Magazine in 2008, Oberst said, “I guess I’m just conflicted. I mean, I want to find something like that. Badly. But in all the forms where it’s been offered to me, they seem fraudulent, you know? … And not that I’m an expert on all these religions, but what I know about all the other major religions kind of all just fall a little flat in their—I guess, just in their kind of narrow-mindedness. I feel like there’s something much more basic than what all these people are worried about.” In the essay The Myth of Sisyphus, the author, Albert Cadmus, talks about Absurdism, which is “man’s search for meaning in a meaningless world.” This belief seems to align perfectly with Conor Oberst’s beliefs, especially in this song. He searches tirelessly for meaning, or religion, but deep down he knows there is no correct religion. The last line of the verse, “Slipping steadily into madness, now that’s the only place to be free.” This obviously refers back to the madness which befell Sisyphus due to his eternal punishment, but more so, it is Oberst’s belief that the only way to be free of the worries of no salvation or religious comfort is if you let go, and go mad. The madness he refers to is most likely drug use. Oberst has said that he uses drugs as an escape from his worries and that when he is sober, he becomes terrified of the overwhelming truth of the evil in world.
This is the second time the chorus appears, with a few differences from the first version. “But here it come, that heavy love/You’re never gonna move it alone/Here it come that heavy love/Tattooed on a criminal’s arm/Here it come, that heavy love/Someone gotta share in the load/Oh, Here it come, that heavy love/You’re never gonna move it alone.” The line that goes, “Tattooed on a criminal’s arm,” coincides with the line about graffiti in the previous chorus. The same religious imagery is often found as tattoos on many people, even criminals in jail and is therefore inescapable. In this chorus, Oberst has changed all the first person words to second person. He has still not found anything to believe in. Oberst said in an interview that he was “going through a period of intense atheism, but now I find myself going back and forth between feeling like there are things at work besides biology, and feeling like it's complete nonsense.” (Montreal Mirror) During his times of atheism, he would preach it to everyone through rhetoric and song. When he uses words like “you’re”, he is telling other people, as though it is a fact, that if he can’t move that heavy love, or find faith in religion, than it must not exist. This period of his life when he was putting down other religions and their beliefs is one of the times Oberst was “Cruel to something helpless and weak” that he wishes he could forgive himself for.
The bridge of the song is Oberst singing “No I don’t wanna play/It’s a shell game.” A shell game is a type of thimblerig game where a small ball is hidden underneath three small cups and the cups are then shuffled. The player must pick the cup they think that the ball is under. The game is actually a fraud because the person doing the swindling will have taken out the ball or hidden it so that the player will always lose (Cup & Ball Trick). Oberst is saying that he no longer wants to play the shell game of choosing a religion. He believes God is tricking and cheating him because religion itself is a hoax and there is no hidden truth or salvation beneath any of the “cups” or different worldly religions.
The fourth verse begins with “Distorted sounds on oscilloscopes/distorted facts, I could never cope.” An oscilloscope is a machine that measures and displays sounds waves. It is a device that Oberst, being a musician and musical technician has become very familiar with. The machines specifically show the distortion of sound waves (Mirriam Webster). Because sound waves are used to transfer messages, if these waves are distorted, the message will become unclear. The lyrics are about how Oberst has received many messages through so many mediums in his life about religion and spirituality, but they were all distorted and therefore left him alone, and unable to cope with his life’s purpose. The next stanza is, “My private life is an inside joke/No one will explain it to me.” These words continue with the themes of Oberst feeling like everyone else is in on a big secret, but God is ignoring his pleas to understand it. He feels left out and alone. The last line of the verse is a moment of epiphany for the singer. He sings “We’ll be everything that we ever need” This is the first time Oberst uses the word “we” and it is meant to show that he finally realized he is not alone in his troubles because many other people question their faith. He wants everyone to know that, unlike what they have been told, they do not need God and religion, but only the love of one another for life to be worth living.
The next part of the song, when Oberst chants, “Everyone on the count of three/All together now,” is an impassioned cry for anyone who has ever felt at a loss or confused in their faith to be released from its shackles. Now the lyrics of the chorus have become, “Here it come, that heavy love/We’re never gonna move it alone/Here it come, that heavy love/Playing as the cylinder rolls/Here it come, that heavy love/I only want to share in the load/Oh, here it come, that heavy love/I’m never gonna move it alone.” This is also the first time Oberst uses the term “we” in the chorus. He believes if they all stand together, they can finally move the “heavy love” that has been weighing them down for so long, and none of them will ever feel alone in the universe again.
Conor Oberst uses poetry and heavy symbolism in the song Shell Games to describe his lifelong quest to find meaning in life through religion; from his childhood at a Catholic School being taught distorted messages, to his dark, death obsessed teenage years where he felt a complete disconnect and preached atheism, to the present. He has tried to be accepting towards, and even a part of many different religious societies, but they have all had flaws and felt false to him. In the song Four Winds off of 2007’s Cassadaga Oberst sings “The Bible’s blind, the Torah’s deaf, The Quran is mute/If you burned them all together, you’d get close to the truth.” He thinks that all religions are focusing on their differences, instead of their overall message of love of your fellow human being. He once said, “I find it really shocking that two groups that are, from an outsider’s perspective, almost identical—you know, Shiites and Sunnis, or Catholics and Protestants—can actually kill each other over these minor details. And dogma and all that stuff, to me it’s anti- whatever I would consider god-like. Which is, I think, a connectedness and an all-encompassing sort of love for things. I suppose that’s a lot of what Buddhism is, but I haven’t found anything that really hits the mark for me (Jackson).” By the end of the song, he has finally come to the realization that organized religion is a sham and holds no real truth or salvation. He believes that all people should release themselves from the burden of “heavy love” that makes happiness and peace so hard to obtain. He begs the lost and faithless people of the world to unite together and form their own community based on one pure ideal: all they really need in life is the unconditional, light love of one another.
1). It actually makes sense.
2). Conor isn't known for being grammatically wrong, intentionally.
RealityInRepair pointed out that "The fireworks" = letting Off the Happiness, "The vanity" = the mirror cover of Fevers and Mirrors, "The circuit board" = Digital Ash, "The city streets" = The New York street depicted on I'm Wide Awake.., "shooting star, swaying palm tree" = the cover of Cassadaga. He begins by saying he took his previous works (keep in mind, an artist puts their entire being into their work, so essentially, he's talking about his previous selves) and says that he laid them "at the ARBITER'S feet". An arbiter is a person who has ultimate authority in a matter, or whose views or actions influence social behavior. (God).
"If I could change my mind, change the paradigm/Prepare myself for another life/Forgive myself for the many times/I was cruel to something helpless and weak" If he could change his doubts, or change the fact that he has to be alone, prepare himself for Heaven, and forgive himself of his past wrongdoings, he would, but he just can't do it alone (as he says in the chorus).
"I was dressed in white, touched by something pure/Death obsessed like a teenager/Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar/I'm still angry with no reason to be" He was obsessed with dying and purity, let go of his tortured youth and bitterness (vinegar vs. honey), was being a good person (and probably trying to love the world around him), but was still angry at the "ARCHITECT who imagined this/For the everyman" (obviously, God). He references Sisyphus, who (by Zeus's/god's order) had to spend eternity rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down, which was intended to be torturous. Conor probably equates this to finding somebody only to end up alone again. "Slipping steadily into madness/Now that's the only place to be free" He may even be referring to religion as the "madness" here, as you can be free in its consolation, but again the chorus comes in and he says he can't do it alone.
In either chorus, while referring to the "heavy love", he says "tag (graffiti) it on a tenement wall" and "tattooed on a criminal's arm," which are both ironic places that people put crosses and such.
He says "No, I don't want to play/It's a shell game" which refers to a gamble in which the player gets swindled. Religion is a gamble because there is no way to prove it, and Conor felt swindled when he tried.
"My private life is an inside joke/No one will explain it to me." No matter what he does, he can't figure out how to stop being alone.
"We'll be everything that we ever needed/Everyone, on the count of three!/Everyone, on the count of three!/All together now!" We don't need God, we only need each other.
The first stanza is clearly, and so cleverly pointed out as his previous albums. The second stanza I believe to mean if he could go back in time to change the way he was he could prepare himself for another life (afterlife) and talking about how he regrets being cruel I guess. Maybe he was sadistic toward small animals...
The chorus is so pretty, I feel like he is talking about the need for love in the world and that it's too overwhelming for him to take on himself but that everyone needs to "share in the load" Tag it on the tenement wall I think is referring to spread the word.
The third stanza he is talking about how he was in the past. When he says "sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar" I feel like he is saying that he wasted his youth being angry but even though he realizes that he still is angry although he recognizes that there isn't a purpose for it.
The fourth stanza he is saying what he is angry at..and from what I read of others posts he is angry at the way life is inherently an upward struggle and probably saying that drugs is the only way to be free from the craziness of life.
The shell games part I'm a little confused about.
The fifth stanza is clearly about the media and how it's affected him although the meaning is pretty enigmatic.
then the next part I feel like he is involving everyone, kind of saying yea come on, help with the load. we 'll all do it together kind of thing